RS Group

A post-rebrand website for a market-leading FTSE 250 provider of industrial product and service solutions

RS Group is a purpose-led business within the industrial sector. From humble beginnings in 1937, the FTSE 250 Group is now a market-leading digital destination for product and service solutions for global organisations operating within the industrial market.

With a portfolio of disparate operating brands, led by Electrocomponents plc, over 2022/23 the Group implemented a rapid but extensive global rebranding exercise. All facets of the Group brand were overhauled, with a new brand strategy, architecture, visual identity and brand activation programme undertaken. The outcome culminated in a name change to RS Group plc and a rationalising of both product and service solution ranges under a unified and globally integrated RS brand portfolio.

We were appointed to work closely with a multidisciplinary RS Group team, not only to bring the new brand to life across the new Group website, but also to deliver a much harder working site, meeting the needs of all stakeholders from investors and talent to ESG focussed audiences and more.

View RS Group website

Building on a fresh new identity

As a business that operates within a digital environment, the RS Group brand team had implemented a deep rebrand programme, investigating all aspects of how the visual identity and brand works across both static and digital applications. Considering accessibility needs and technical performance all brand elements, including typography, colour, graphic language and movement had been investigated, and the new site design and build gave us an exciting opportunity to bring this to life and build upon the foundational guidelines.

A bold and confident graphic language

The application of the dynamic and adaptive perspective mask, alongside bold colour and an extensive and engaging image library, provides interest, engagement, scale and visual pace across the new website, especially with the added use of movement which was carefully balanced to pique interest but not suffer from over use/application.

 

We were conscious of focussing on the small detail across the site too, for example utilising assets from the the icon suite to create interactive states and encourage user engagement and drive calls to action.

Mobile-first approach to a modern digital experience

From both a user experience and SEO performance perspective, whilst analytics data supported a primarily desktop driven demographic, a growing uptick in traffic across mobile devices supported a mobile-first approach to ensure an unparalleled equality in UX across both desktop and mobile devices.

Better consideration for all stakeholder needs

Historically, the old website had been primarily focussed on investors as the primary audience. A key part of our initial digital strategy phase was addressing the needs and user journeys of broader personas, including talent, media, analysts and technology 'archetypes' such as bots scraping for ESG/rating data.  

Content syndication and a user-friendly CMS

A key outcome of any website planning and strategy phase is considering how content can be syndicated across the website to build an intuitive and simple Content Management System (CMS). Throughout the information architecture and wireframing stages this was a key factor, with the development of a content tagging framework to enable important content to be added once and syndicated across relevant sections of the new site.

A platform for future growth

The new website was developed with a future looking mindset, ensuring the ability to further develop content and functionality beyond that developed in the phase one site design and build. Using data and user behaviour analytics, our ongoing hosting, support and insights services not only ensure technical optimisation and performance as standard, but also the ongoing development and adaptation of the site to provide a hardworking, digital marketing tool that supports the overall commercial and strategic objectives of the Group. 

We are incredibly proud of our new website that truly captures what our company stands for – making amazing happen – and we couldn’t have achieved this without our partnership with SampsonMay. From taking the time to understand our needs to executing a design that showcases our new branding, SampsonMay were always on hand to support, guide and execute our ideas, ensuring the process was smooth, stress free and we were able to launch without any delay.

Lucy Sharma, Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Development

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