The decision to re-brand a successful business like Rated People wasn’t taken lightly. Our reasons for rebranding came as a result of wanting to reflect the evolution we were undergoing as a business in an ever-changing competitive landscape. We are using rebrand as an offensive tool to stay ahead as the UK’s no.1 home services marketplace whilst also accommodating opportunities for growth.
We were however acutely aware of the connection that our existing homeowners and tradespeople had with the brand and wanted to make the transition to a new identity as smooth as possible. It was therefore important to incorporate the familiar and most recognised components from the old logo into the new identity. The speech bubble, which has been part of our logo since we were established in 2005, remains core to the identity and we have kept our primary colour – green (take a look at our new homepage).
We’ve also changed the way we talk to our homeowners and tradespeople. Our business is about facilitating connections so it was important for us to connect with our customers in the right way.
However, the rebrand is not just about a change in logo and tone of voice. It runs deeper – changing the vision, mission and brand story.
We wanted to highlight the impact we have been having as a business on peoples’ lives across the UK. For example, we contribute an estimated £1.3 billion to the UK economy through the connections we facilitate between homeowners and tradespeople. We also look to affect change. An example would be our continued effort to reduce the skills shortage in the trades industry by seeking out ways to encourage more people into the trades, by bringing skilled tradespeople to the forefront and helping to raise standards through a platform that rates the work they do.
Our mission therefore is to connect good homeowners with good tradespeople to deliver better homes, better work and better lives. We have 11 years of experience in this industry – we are best placed in understanding the needs and ambitions of our homeowners and tradespeople – the types of homes our customers aspire to live in, the business ambitions of our tradespeople, the type of lives they want to lead.
That’s why we are the UK’s no.1 home services marketplace. We intend to keep it that way.
So. Your rebranding is offensive? I’d agree with that.
Hi Robert,
Everyone is entitled to an opinion. We respect that. We quite like it.
Thanks,
Natalie
Nice look.
Suggestion: On you blog you should put a prominent link to the ‘rated people.com’ website homepage. You want people to go there don’t you?
Good luck
Hi Dan,
Great minds think alike. That’s around the corner. In the meantime, we’ve got ‘Create a job’ in the nav so there’s still an avenue for homeowners to post jobs for tradespeople to service.
Thanks,
Natalie
Another suggestion. The ‘budgets’ section is useful but can be improved.
http://www.ratedpeople.com/budgets/
1) It currrently requires too many clicks to get the info – eventually taking me to a page with *1* line of text. I suggest that you rather have all the info each section on one page. So, for instance, when I click on ‘renovations’ I should get a page with the prices for all the jobs – garage conversion, loft conversion etc. Currently I have to click backwards and forwards to get all the data on that page – a waste of my time.
2) the spec for extensions ‘2 rooms’ or ‘4 rooms’ etc is too vague. You need to specify the rough size of the room.
Thanks for this Dan – noted to pass on!
Thanks,
Natalie
One more suggestion. Reading your article you say you have retained the speech bubble. I would never have seen the speech bubble in the R without being prompted. I suggest making it oval, like normal speech bubbles, because the I will see it as a speech bubble, but will still see the R as an R….
The R logo is cool, the speech bubble is balanced with rest of the logo. Whilst it is subtle, it is obviously there. Good Job
That’s a speech bubble?! I thought that was simply a stylised capital P for People inside the R for Rated … oops
Haha! Well it’s shaped to be a ‘P’ too Paul so good spot! 😉
Why was the rebranding considered offensive by Robert? Also can anyone explain the pricing system used for jobs it all seems random?
Can we still get Rated people stickers for our vans?
Hi Stephen,
The price of a lead varies with an average of £15 +VAT and is based on the job’s size, scope, location and demand for the skills required to carry it out. As for the stickers, these will be available again as soon as we have our merchandise rebranded with the new logo. We’ll let you know when it’s back up and running.
Thanks,
Natalie
When Rated People came about I was introducted to it and enjoyed work from it. It was fair to the tradesman.
Now after a takeover and many unnessesary changes its now almost the same as what it was like.
Im sure after more changes that reassure the tradesman, the one who RP make money from, will transition back to the original service. Apart from the TV campaigns which are good.
Begs the question, “Why Change”
App needs “Report a lead”
Web based pages using an Android device performs like the app except you cant scroll down your purchased jobs. How many tradesmen carry around a laptop??
A deliberate attempt at making it hard to report a lead !!!
No excuse to have glitchy apps.
Hi there,
Thanks for your feedback. Glad to hear you like the TV campaigns although it’s a shame to hear that you’re having issues with different parts of the service. We do have a report a lead function for the Trades app on Android. To find it, you just need to go to the purchased lead that you want to report, click the red + button and you’ll see report a lead as the third option on the menu. With the scrolling down your purchased jobs, you can still access all of these – we’ve just put them over separate pages to condense things. So you’d just need to go onto page 2 etc to bring up more.
I hope this helps.
Natalie