By Tom Tawell, Head of Marketing and Business Development at Lignacite Ltd
As we transition from traditional feature-led to evidence-based product marketing, here’s how Lignacite is building a stronger brand, voice and reputation in the construction industry – cutting through the noise one accreditation at a time.
In today’s world of fake news, overinflated product claims and cynicism around anything that sounds too good to be true – especially when it comes to sustainability – the strongest brands don’t just talk; they demonstrate.
At Lignacite, we understand this, which is why our marketing is rooted in evidence, not empty promises. Our approach is simple:
- If we can’t prove it, we don’t say it. ❎
- If we make a claim, we back it up. ✅
This mantra has driven us to invest significantly in the documentation behind our products, building trust and confidence in the market:
- Independently verified Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), validating the embodied carbon* in our products, from source to site.
- Third-party recycled content audits, validating the exact percentage of recycled materials in each block.
- Countless accreditations, ranging from BES 6001 for responsible sourcing to ISO 27100 for information security.
In short, we demonstrate exactly what goes into our blocks – and everything around them. No vague claims. No creative maths. Just solid proof.
The Challenge of Innovation in Construction
Let’s be honest: construction progress isn’t always straightforward, and evolution takes time. New, lower-carbon products often face scepticism over their performance, and concerns about greenwashing are valid. Now more than ever, reliability and transparency are paramount.
Put it this way… If you’re specifying materials for a high-profile building project with strict health, safety, sustainability and durability requirements – and there’s a risk of fines for non-compliance – would you really choose a new product unless you were 99.9999999% sure it would perform?
That’s why we find ourselves in a middle ground, where architects, specifiers and contractors are looking for what I like to call ‘best-of-both-worlds products’ – ones that perform like their traditional counterparts but offer greater carbon savings. Products they know will work while helping them meet specific sustainability goals, such as BREEAM ratings.
A Guiding Principle for the Lignacite ECO Range
When we set out to develop the branding and messaging for the Lignacite ECO Range (the lower-carbon equivalent of our standard Lignacite block and our biggest product innovation in decades), I knew we needed a guiding principle that reflected the current market position. It had to be something simple but memorable that everyone in the company could understand and rally behind as we launched this new product line.
The guiding principle I devised was: “Same block. Less carbon.”
It’s a bit like Coca-Cola Zero’s slogan, “Same great taste. Zero sugar” – clear, to the point and immediately recognisable as an upgrade, not a compromise. It also created an easy-to-understand internal message that could be shared throughout the company to align the message and assist with quotes and sales communications.
Our guiding principle directly reflected the market insights we gathered. Through multiple conversations with key partners, we learned that the industry doesn’t simply want ‘greener’ products that feel unfamiliar – that’s when the risk factor kicks in. They want proof that a product performs like the materials they’ve used for years, but with a smaller environmental footprint.
The message was clear: They wanted Lignacite blocks – just the ‘eco’ version.
Leaning into Brand Equity & the Power of Choice
Rather than creating a whole new name for the range, we listened to the market and leaned into our established brand equity. Why reinvent the wheel when the Lignacite name already carries trust? That’s why we named it the Lignacite ECO Range, instead of opting for a more complex or clever name that would have taken longer to establish with both new and existing audiences.
Lignacite Brand Evolution & Product Offering
This decision also allowed us to clearly differentiate between our Lignacite Standard Range and the Lignacite ECO Range, giving customers clear options: stick with what they know, go eco, or mix both product lines depending on their needs and requirements.
Whether they wanted to dive right in and swap everything over to our ECO Range or act more cautiously by incorporating these greener blocks alongside traditional ones, we made sure they had the means to specify and use the most suitable blocks for the project. Choice being the key word here, providing customers with the breadth and flexibility of products to meet both performance standards and sustainability goals.
The Campaign Strapline: “Tough on Performance. Kinder on the Planet.”
With the brand name sorted and the messaging strategy clear, we needed something to reflect the ‘best-of-both-worlds’ product we were bringing to the market. This led to the campaign strapline: “Lignacite ECO: Tough on performance. Kinder on the planet.”
It resonates because it speaks directly to the mindset of architects, specifiers and contractors: “Don’t ask me to compromise – prove I don’t have to.”In other words, it’s the Lignacite they’ve known and trusted since the ’40s, but with hugely enhanced eco-credentials (back to our guiding principle).
It’s not the ‘zero version’ just yet (removing embodied carbon from construction products is a tad more difficult than replacing sugar with sweeteners in a soft drink!), but a 70% reduction in embodied carbon compared to our standard Lignacite blocks is a giant leap forward. And best of all, our figures are independently verified in our EPDs and recycled content audits (back to the proof).
This focus on transparency – giving our customers a true picture of our products without overstating the numbers – is reflected in the strapline. It says exactly what our customers are getting and is bold, clear and evidence-based. Triple win! (Quadruple win if you count how great it looks on our merch!)
Lignacite ECO Range Branding & Strapline
A Shift to Evidence-Based Product Marketing
What this all signals is a major shift from feature-led to evidence-based product marketing.
In the construction materials sector, successful product marketing now centres on accreditations and verifications – the hard facts behind the features. These not only develop credibility with key audiences but also foster long-term relationships rather than short-term sales.
This isn’t just a passing trend; it’s a movement. With building regulations tightening around safety and sustainability, it’s no longer enough to simply say what a product contains or can do – you need the independent documentation to support it.
And that’s the kind of marketing our industry deserves – one that shows proof, not promises.
Click here to take a closer look at the Lignacite ECO Range: https://eco-range.lignacite.co.uk/