An exciting brand refresh for the Home of Scottish Industry

We met up with Nancy Apperley, Frasers Property UK’s senior marketing manager, to find out what was involved, why it was done and what will look different on the estate.

It’s been a long time since the HP brand was changed so what were the reasons behind the decision to refresh and update?

The previous Hillington Park brand was created more than ten years ago, by previous owners of the estate, it was part of a larger portfolio and didn’t have the personality we wanted to represent. Frasers Property decided the time was right for change and has fully funded the new brand that we’re now rolling out across the park, and online.

The change is all about what the estate represents, a big part of this is the diverse range of businesses based here, representing many different sectors. Hillington Park is still Scotland’s first and largest industrial park and that heritage is a big part of the new brand.

Tell us a bit about what has changed in the new brand and what the changes mean

We decided to do something strong, bold and confident with the brand and use a simple colour palette that are very different from the previously dominant purple. We’ve moved to a more modern theme using black, white and greys with a highlight of brighter yellow. We’ve also introduced a new logo together with new fonts that again we feel reflects that modernisation and transition we’ve seen happening on Hillington Park over the last decade.

HP has changed a lot over the last five years with lots of new builds, modernisation, and new businesses on the estate so how did you figure out what needed to be changed in the brand?

We worked closely with brand agency, J2, who have a lot of experience in the property sector and provided lots of great ideas and advice. They took the time to engage with the Hillington Park management team who know it inside and out. They also spoke to some of the occupiers, learning more about their perceptions of the estate and hearing more about how their businesses have benefitted from being here. The results of these conversations showed that we needed to celebrate the business community here more and be proud of the heritage.

A project like this doesn’t happen overnight and brings its own challenges along the way. Can you describe some of the hurdles you had to overcome?

One of the biggest challenges for the new brand was the signage across the estate, of which there was (and still is) huge amount. All of this needed rebranding. Therefore, the main challenge was the sheer scale of the estate – which covers 417 acres and circa 4m sq ft of built space. This undoubtedly gave us some logistical challenges – lots of different road signs (107 in total!), directory boards and totems. And that’s before we even get round to installing them all… However we had a brilliant team involved that included Hillington-based signage company Clarke Signs, Magna Signs, the Frasers Property team and our design agency, J2, who all collaborated to make it happen. We’re proud that people are starting to notice and appreciate the upgrades.

The business community at HP is at the heart of the estate and they have so many stories to tell. The new website already has lots of these stories, so if a company on the estate wanted to let you know theirs how would they go about that?

We’d love to hear more about our occupiers and the businesses they run here, we have been running a series of customer showcases and it would be great to add more. If anyone wants to get involved, please contact myself on nancy.apperley@frasersproperty.com or your usual Frasers Property or MAPP contact.