Trussle rebrands as ‘The Home of Home Ownership’

By Bridging Loan Directory 15th March 2018

Becoming a homeowner is a huge and happy milestone. But for many people the journey to get there is still overwhelming and outdated. Trussle’s ambition is to change that by transforming the home ownership journey into a simple, rewarding and modern experience. Branding agency Ragged Edge worked with Trussle to define their proposition, before creating a new visual and verbal identity for the fintech start-up. Following the rebrand, advertising agency UnLtd Inc, media planning agency Squadron Venture Media and Ragged Edge worked together to create an above the line campaign calling on homeowners to spare two minutes now, so they never have to think about their mortgage again. The campaign goes live today on TV and out of home.

An industry starved of innovation

For many people, securing a mortgage can be a painful and fractured experience. Trussle was borne out of Founder and CEO Ishaan Malhi’s own frustration in struggling to secure a mortgage for his first home.

Malhi, pictured, says:

“There‘s too much jargon, too much complexity and not enough transparency. Millions of people lose out financially, and emotionally, as a result. At Trussle, we’re tackling this head on. We’re making the mortgage journey simpler and more intuitive, removing lots of the hurdles and helping save people money in the process.”

Opening doors for more people

Trussle enlisted Ragged Edge to create a brand that would shake up the industry through a people-focussed approach.

Max Ottignon, Co-founder, Ragged Edge says:

“We worked with the Trussle team to create a brand that could stand for far more than finance. Trussle opens doors at every stage of the home ownership journey. This led to a brand idea – Open Doors – that could manifest itself across every area of the business – from design, to product development, to customer service.”

Ragged Edge used the brand idea to create a simple, bold visual identity inspired by the purity of an architect’s drawing of an open door. The identity was supported by a warm yet disruptive colour palette, a set of playful illustrations and a welcoming tone of voice, embodied by a new tagline, ‘The home of home ownership’.

Consumer launch campaign

According to Trussle’s research, there are at least 2 million UK mortgage holders who could save an average £300 a month by sparing two minutes to sign up to Trussle to check if they are on the right mortgage product.

So to launch the brand to consumers, UnLtd Inc, Ragged Edge and Squadron Venture Media worked with Trussle to create an above the line advertising campaign to drive awareness around this compelling message.

UnLtd Inc, the new agency set up by former Crispin Porter and Bogusky employees Dave Buonaguidi, Arjun Singh and Will Waldron, created two TV commercials featuring unwitting mortgage holders who are shocked to hear that they’re overpaying for their mortgage. A benign voiceover, who addresses them as ‘Russell’, explains the product with a series of tongue-twisting plays on words. The commercials were directed by Mark Denton and produced through SparkleBop.

Dave Buonaguidi, founder of UnLtd-Inc, said:

‘It’s been great fun working on this project. Ishaan and the team at Trussle have bold ambitions, we created some lovely work that I really think will cut through and work for them, and from a selfish point of view we got to work with Mark Denton. I like him.’

Ragged Edge wrote, designed and illustrated a poster campaign to tackle mortgage inertia by showing the potential savings people could make by switching. The posters will run across new Routemaster buses and on tube car panels.

Project management, media planning and buying was handled by Squadron Venture Media, the advertising accelerator which specialises in forging innovative media deals for growth companies.

Tom Lucas, Partner, says:

‘The launch campaign not only spotlights the broken mortgage process, but also clearly demonstrates how Trussle can help with clarity, humour and some much-needed playfulness. The industry thrives on consumer inertia and we wanted to shock people into spending just two minutes on Trussle to see if they could save – now and forever.’