A Brand and Experience to Redefine Category Standards
Upp
Office: London
Upp is the vibrant new start-up in the ISP category. Founded by a small group of industry veterans united by a big ambition, Upp is on a mission to set the new standard in broadband.
Today, most providers hook-up their customers to a box on the street and sign contracts for flaky speeds of “up to” 100Mb. Upp is delivering full-fibre broadband to the home (also known as FTTP) to support reliable, consistent, next level speeds of 1Gb.
Upp brought the experience, infrastructure, and financial backing to raise the bar. All that was left was a brand to take it to customers.
The root of this challenge was customer inertia. Upp would be coming with big claims to a market where people have low expectations, particularly in the areas of the UK which are still underserved. They have become desensitised to undelivered speeds and poor customer service. And while their lives are limited to the quality of their connection, broadband continues to play an increasingly intrinsic role in how people work, rest and play. People’s experiences of broadband do not reflect the considerable importance it has in our lives. And so, our task was to design a brand and customer experience which distils the founding team’s energy, challenges the big industry incumbents, and, above all, unjams customer inertia.
Through pace, agility, and close client collaboration, Interbrand founded a brand, an internal culture, and a customer experience blueprint in just four months – hitting every investor deadline along the way.
“Interbrand’s support in helping us to create the Upp brand has not just set us up for a successful launch, but has helped us to realise how our brand will grow and develop for years to come”
Nicolas de Cordes, Chief Commercial Officer
UPP
So, we asked: what’s the opposite of those all-too-familiar interruptions to life and work online? Put simply, the answer was: flow. Flow comes to life as a reliable, high-speed connection, working quietly and brilliantly in the background. It means when customers need support, Upp is focused on limited downtime and personable service. For Upp’s internal culture, flow means teams who work seamlessly, efficiently, and effectively together.
This customer insight led to Upp’s purpose: to remove all barriers and interruptions to effortless connected living. And the way Upp will get there is by making all aspects of the experience flow.
Say good-bye to “your call is important to us” service. We placed customers at the heart of this project, unearthing their pain points (that we call ‘flow blockers’) and what value-add looks like for them (‘flow promoters’). We paired this with category benchmarking to develop a customer journey and channel strategy which unpacks into key engagement moments. Upp’s customer experience is underpinned by experience principles designed for consistency. They help the brand focus effort where it matters most and create the feeling of flow from installation onwards.
The name needed to reflect the optimism and ambition of the founding team. It needed to work hard to unjam customer inertia. It needed to convey speed, without leaning on any of the category clichés. And above all, it needed to say that we are here to raise the standard in broadband . And so, we named the brand Upp.
Each element of Upp’s identity was designed with a strategic purpose in mind – nothing superfluous. We created a system which could easily be adopted by a small team with big ambitions. We chose a colour palette, typography, and tone of voice to grab attention. And we created balance through animations which quietly, beautifully convey the feeling of flow. After all, when your broadband flows better, everything flows better.
