Rebuilding a Historic Windows & Doors Brand—Inside & Out
SERVICES
Project Overview: Simonton Brand Evolution
For over 75 years, Simonton’s award-winning vinyl windows and doors have helped consumers reframe the way they look at their homes. Bailey partnered with senior leadership at Cornerstone Building Brands to holistically understand the present state of the residential windows category and then evolve the Simonton brand to best align with the needs of its customers, homeowners and the overall market.
Finally, the new brand strategy was rolled out to multiple key stakeholders; internal employees, builders, customers, contractors and homeowners through a variety of internal and external touchpoints.
What We Did
The newly refreshed Simonton Windows & Doors brand has been several years in the making. In 2019, Bailey partnered with Cornerstone Building Brands to conduct a large-scale market analysis and segmentation study of the vinyl windows category. Our primary objective in undertaking this massive research initiative was to better understand the preferences, biases, purchasing behavior and pain points of both homeowners and building professionals. This crucial insight would then enable our teams to align on an optimal positioning strategy for Simonton—as well as its sibling sub-brands within the Cornerstone Building Brands portfolio.
Our team collected input over a period of many months through exhaustive questionnaires and one-on-one interviews with builders, contractors and other key stakeholders. The insight we uncovered painted a vivid picture of a diverse and dynamic business environment comprising multiple unique audience personas with clean points of differentiation between them.
The study carried major implications for the Simonton brand in particular; Bailey and Cornerstone Building Brands senior leadership made the determination to drop the “Ply Gem” endorsement from the Simonton brand in order to more precisely position both entities to their respective market segments—and to optimally position the Cornerstone Building Brands US Residential Windows division for future success.
The research served as a roadmap from which our team began work on rebuilding the Simonton positioning platform from the ground up—defining ownable attributes, key messaging and points of differentiation as they relate to the brand’s two primary audiences: builders/contractors and homeowners.
Results
The final step for our team was to bring the refreshed positioning to life through a robust new visual identity and to develop and implement an activation plan to roll out these changes across every facet of the brand. We created a wide range of media and materials to reintroduce the brand to employees and other internal stakeholders, including an aspirational brand essence video and a comprehensive playbook containing visual systems, guidelines, key messaging and more.
The Simonton logo was redesigned to better communicate and reinforce the updated brand attributes of quality, confidence and approachability while utilizing elegant symmetrical shapes that create a stylized “S” for “Simonton.”
The brand relaunch was supported externally through new sales materials and collateral as well as an all-new website. Bailey’s strategy and UX/UI teams collaborated to rebuild Simonton.com from the ground up in order to create an improved user experience with streamlined content that delivers on the revised positioning: “Impressive Inside and Out.”
A behind-the-scenes look at one of the many sets created to showcase the beauty of Simonton's windows and doors
A behind-the-scenes look at one of the many sets created to showcase the beauty of Simonton's windows and doors
“Bailey went above and beyond on the Simonton brand evolution. We could not be more impressed with the strategic thinking and creative solutions they delivered.”
