By Maggie Morrissey, PR and content director, Lesniak Swann.
Every change in policy or regulation creates questions for brands supplying products into the built environment. The period between announcement and legal effect can last months, even years, giving manufacturers a clear window of opportunity to build brand authority by explaining what the change means in practice.
Customers, specifiers and the media start looking for someone who can make sense of the change. And whoever steps forward often becomes an industry reference point, a position that holds long after the change has bedded in.
Regulation quickly becomes about the practical implications: U-values, product evidence, compliant specifications, installation detail, and what can be said to customers.
Reynaers Aluminium UK provides a strong example of this approach. By translating complex regulatory changes into clear, practical guidance for fabricators, installers, architects, and specifiers, they have enabled their customers to make decisions with greater speed and confidence.
Reassured with Reynaers
The 2021 Part L uplift was published in December 2021 and came into force the following June. Reynaers campaign, ‘Be reassured with Reynaers’, went live at the point of the government announcement – six months before the requirements applied, clearly positioning the brand as experts in what the changes meant, and to reinforce their technical credentials based around the work they’d been doing on product developments in lieu of the regulations coming into play.
The campaign content was tailored for fabricators, installers and architects, each needing answers to different questions. Alongside PR in the glazing and construction press, Reynaers ran face-to-face roadshows so its technical team could take questions directly. Every session sold out, against a target of 120 attendees, with hundreds more joining follow-up webinars. Media reach passed 800,000 opportunities to see, against a 500,000 target, while social engagement rose by almost 120% and click-through by nearly 300%.
Building Safety Act
The same principle has shaped Reynaers’ response to the Building Safety Act, which has opened a much broader set of questions: manufacturer accountability, the Gateway process, demonstrating competency, the role of the principal designer, and what evidence follows a building through design, construction and occupation.
Those questions are where expert brands can become useful. Reynaers introduced a campaign, ‘Expert compliance from the ground up’, to provide clarity while uncertainty was delaying projects. Working with partners, specifiers and contractors, it identified the most pressing concerns and turned them into in-depth articles by-lined to John McComb, the company’s technical director, covering competency in curtain walling installation, Gateway 2, testing and data, and transparency in façade construction.
The articles appeared in the media the audiences read. Reynaers also developed a ‘Mastering the Building Safety Act’ CPD programme and trained 145 architects on the topic. The campaign has generated more than 40 pieces of coverage, reached an audience of 652,000, and is still running because there remains industry uncertainty around the Act.
Samantha Hill, head of marketing at Reynaers Aluminium UK, said: “With the Building Safety Act, the temptation is to publish one guide and move on. We started with the questions customers were asking and let our technical experts answer them one at a time. That meant we were part of the conversation rather than commenting on it.”
If a sales or technical team has answered the same question 20 times, that is content the market is asking for and can be the focus for a brand building marketing campaign. Reynaers’ campaigns worked because they dealt with genuine questions the industry needed answered, which kept them relevant long after publication and positioned Reynaers as the visible expert.
The Future Homes Standard now creates a similar opportunity. The regulations were laid before parliament in March this year and come into force in March 2027, with higher-risk buildings following that September. The Approved Documents are published, but the market has not yet fully absorbed what the changes mean.
One change matters more than any other: under the Home Energy Model, every window in a new home is assessed at its actual size and configuration, rather than against the 1.23m x 1.48m standard window long used for energy ratings. Because most real openings are smaller than that, the same product can return a very different figure, and the notional value becomes harder to hit. That raises new questions about what must be declared, by whom and on what evidence.
Installers, fabricators and specifiers will need clear, practical answers long before the dust settles. Manufacturers that can explain the implications with confidence have a chance to become the expert voice customers turn to. The Future Homes Standard is the next regulation window, and it is open now.