November 2013
Catherine Cannon at Crindledyke Farm
Story Homes’ marketing manager has been shortlisted for a Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) award.
Catherine Cannon has been shortlisted for the professional body’s ‘Marketer of the Year’ 2013 title in the annual national awards.
Catherine’s work to rebrand Story Homes has taken place over the last twelve months, contributing to one of her most challenging years to date, and this has been recognised by the CIM awards.
In 2012, Story Homes announced impressive growth plans, increasing sales from 150 homes per year (2012/13) to over 500 in 2015/16. As a consequence the direction of their marketing approach needed to completely change. Catherine welcomed the opportunity to review Story Homes’ marketing proposition and presented her ideas to rebrand the company to Story Homes Board of Directors. They ultimately opted to implement these concepts, rejecting pitches from external marketing agencies. As a result the whole branding and marketing of the company has dramatically changed. Catherine has created a powerful and complete repositioning of Story Homes’ housing developments and created a more vibrant, exciting and aspirational look and feel to the high specification homes that Story Homes build.
With Catherine’s direction, and the help of local graphic designer, Jeremy Fisher a new logo was designed, incorporating a stork which represents new beginnings and is also part of the Story family crest. Along with strong individual themes for each development, the majority of the rebrand took less than 12 months from concept to delivery.
Catherine has been been instrumental in the whole rebrand process. She has interviewed and selected companies to work with, commissioning a new website and architectural elements required to showcase Story Homes’ properties such as fly throughs and virtual tours. She has created individual ‘themes’ for each housing development to highlight the individual nature of Story Homes’ schemes and has managed all other areas of their marketing campaign too.
Sold Out Clifton Hill Gardens Benefits from Marketing Campaign
Catherine commented:“I’ve had a busy but exciting 12 months! The new marketing approach has received much acclaim both internally and from partner organisations who have all been extremely positive about the rebrand. They provided constructive feedback and also worked with me to ensure that the colours and style fit well with our new marketing. Even new companies we have started to work with in new geographical areas such as Estate Agents and Solicitors are complimentary about our new style and direction. I’m delighted to have been short listed for such a prestigious award as the rebrand of Story Homes has been such a success and I’m proud to be associated with such a forward thinking company.”
Steve Errington, Chief Executive of Story Homes added:“Catherine has achieved a great deal for the company in the last year and deserves her hard work, dedication, professional experience and innovative flair to be recognised. We’ve won many awards for the quality of our houses but the award Catherine has been short listed for is open to anyone who works in marketing in the whole of the UK. This is a major accolade for her to be recognised in such a big pond.”
Catherine has worked as a marketing professional for 18 years and has a wealth of experience within the industry. Her roles have included education, tourism, and the arts and culture. For the last 11 years she has worked predominantly in the construction and house building industry.
Catherine is perhaps most well known for her ‘Felix the Fast Tractor books’ which she first published in 2002 for her then four year old son, who is now 15. This quickly turned into a series of four books. Catherine continues to deliver all of the marketing and PR for this venture too. In 2009 one of her titles was voted ‘best Cumbrian book ever’ in the renowned Lakeland Book Awards, beating off competition from Beatrix Potter, Arthur Ransome and John Cunliffe.
The results of the awards will be announced in London in February 2014.
