Launching a new global house of brands with a powerful purpose
When Worthington Industries, a global manufacturer valued at $4B in 2022, announced a planned separation into two publicly-traded companies, Worthington Enterprises and Worthington Steel, the team at Hanson was tasked to articulate a clear brand vision for Worthington Enterprises.
Brand Strategy
In our discovery phase we interviewed leaders across the business and learned what kept Worthington Enterprises at the forefront of the markets they participated in. We learned what they wanted to convey and what their customers needed to know. One stakeholder summarized it by saying “[We want to be perceived] not as a collection of businesses, but as a cohesive company operating in industrial products in attractive end markets.”
Those interviews drove our competitive analysis, deciphering what made the company stand out as a designer and manufacturer of branded products. Themes that rose to the top included empowering their people, their customers, and the world with market-leading product solutions, and continuing to put people first.
So we unified their business units under a new brand positioning statement: “To empower people to live safer, healthier, and more expressive lives through innovative, responsible solutions they trust for inviting spaces, sustainable energy, and everyday creativity, adventure, and celebration.”
Brand Identity
With a new vision and value proposition to guide our concepting, we began developing strategic messaging and a refreshed visual identity that reflected a modern house of brands that pushes their products to achieve more for their customers. Black and white as the primary tones, plus restrained use of other colors, created the backdrop to showcase the people, product innovations, and purpose at Worthington Enterprises. Each business unit was assigned an accent color to visually differentiate internal business unit communications.
From the logo to photography style, Worthington Enterprises’ new identity expresses the company’s insightful, ambitious, empowered, and optimistic personality. And with a new visual direction to guide our brand identity, we chose “We will lead” as a tagline, highlighting the team’s current market leadership and how the future of the brand will continue to impact the industry.
Brand Activation
New brand, new…everything.
To seamlessly introduce the new Worthington Enterprises brand to the market, we provided tools and support to rollout the brand with consistent executions.
At the annual leadership event, leaders gathered and were fully immersed in the updated look and feel from the moment they walked in the door. Through icebreakers about personal leadership stories to interactive experiences that left their mark on the historic moment, leaders across the three business units connected around a new shared vision.
To gain momentum with the leadership team, we created a brand video that incorporated people, products, and philosophy. Debuting at the leadership event, the brief view into the new company empowered leaders with a vision to motivate their teams.
For social media, we developed dynamic social campaigns for each of Worthington Enterprises’ channels, taking care to address each audience with need-to-know information first.
Reimagining the Worthington Industries website experience we designed last year, we updated styling and content on the Sitefinity instance to reflect that Worthington Enterprises, a market-leading designer and manufacturer, is just getting started.
Results
Our work with Worthington Enterprises crystallized and elevated the authentic common purpose that already existed in the businesses. As a result of what Sonya Higginbottom, SVP & Chief of Corporate Affairs, Communications and Sustainability, called a “wonderful partnership” with the Hanson team, the company is now positioned as a global house of brands with an ascending reputation in their markets.
