Brand Refresh: Why Now & What’s Next?

Select Access, a well-known provider of work at height safety and façade access systems, has unveiled a brand refresh as part of the company’s expansion into the European data centre and pharmaceutical sectors.

Here, we spoke with Select Access’ Brian Duffy, General Manager, Ross Cardiff, Technical Manager, and Graham Akroyd, Operations Manager, about the new brand refresh and their outlook for the next 12 months for the rapidly growing company in the height safety and façade access sector.

Brian, following a period of rapid growth, Select Access recently underwent a brand refresh. What prompted your decision to take on this project and why did you choose to do so at this time?

We have taken great pride in providing a premium full-service offering that includes consultancy, design, installation, testing and inspection, and maintenance of height safety and façade access systems since our inception in 2016. With our continued growth in the Irish market over the last three years, as well as our recent expansion into the UK and Europe, we realised that our visual identity and marketing strategy needed to be updated to support the company’s growth in the data centre, life sciences, and commercial markets.

We saw the global covid-19 pandemic as an opportunity to invest in brand refreshment. While many may have avoided this during a period of uncertainty, Select Access saw it as an excellent opportunity to reinvest in the business and develop our visual identity and online presence, given the construction industry’s continued adoption of digital platforms and communication.

Select Access has a new logo; has anything else changed Brian?

We spent a significant amount of time and money developing new content and messaging for the company in addition to the logo refresh. A key component of the brand refresh was the introduction of a new corporate tagline, ‘Proven Work at Height Safety and Access.’ It was critical for us as a team to emphasise the importance of what we do as a company and how both our services and systems have played an active role in reducing work at height fatalities.

Along with our new tagline, we have launched a new corporate website to highlight the high quality of work that we have delivered and continue to provide, as well as our full range of systems, services, and certified CPD training opportunities that are available to new and existing clients. We also invested in a full suite of marketing collateral, updated digital marketing platforms, new office branding, imagery, vehicle branding, and company workwear for our onsite teams. This refresh demonstrates our company’s commitment to and the importance we place on improving, diversifying, and innovating.

Graham, how does the brand refresh better reflect your position within the market?

Since Select Access became a stand-alone entity of the Select Group five years ago, we have focused on expanding our footprint in Ireland to create a stable platform for future growth. As Brian mentioned, during this time our team has also carried out consultancy and installation work in both Europe and the UK, developing our connections and assessing the operational requirements to successfully deliver projects in these markets.

The goal of the Select Access brand refresh, like that of our sister company LPI Group, which unveiled a rebrand last January to commemorate their tenth year in business, is to proactively reflect our growth and adaptation to today’s evolving client requirements. We recently felt that our existing image just did not truly reflect this. We are all pleased to see that the company image now reflects the young and energetic professional company that we are today as a team of 35 people with extensive experience in the industry.

As Brian shared, the creation of the new suite of materials allows us to reach out to new audiences and enter new markets by showcasing our work and teams on our digital platforms, thereby increasing our following and building strong customer relationships.

When is the refresh happening?

The official launch date has been set for September 10th 2021, and the new brand and messaging have already been implemented throughout our internal team. This project, which was part of our key strategic objectives for 2021-2022, began in mid-2021 as a major project led by the Select Access marketing department with assistance from the operations team.

Ross, can you tell us what’s next for Select Access?

Where do I even begin? Select Access has a lot of new and exciting developments planned for the next 12 months. We are heavily investing and focusing our efforts on entering the European data centre and pharmaceutical markets, where numerous projects are planned over the next 3-5 years. Plant support is a key area of the business that we will heavily promote to the industry given the benefits it offers including being cost-effective and non-penetrative to the roof. Cold bridging and thermal efficiency are currently at the forefront of design and construction with clients and their design teams, so we will be pushing this to the market. It also ensures that the client’s goals for the building’s energy efficiency are met, which is another huge area of importance to clients at the moment.

Our team will also continue to promote our services in the Irish domestic market, from consultancy and design to installation, commissioning, and maintenance. We are currently researching future opportunities in the temporary access cradle industry and hope to share more information on this innovation in the coming months.

Overall, there is a huge amount of innovation and development happening in Select Access,  and we are very excited to welcome the refreshed brand to the industry and continue to grow the company in Ireland, the UK and Europe over the coming years.