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Case Study

Regional Recycling Rebrand

Bringing Recycling into the 21st Century.

Regional Recycling has come a long way from driving beaten-up trucks around the lower mainland nearly a Century ago. When Kihada first started working with them, they referred to themselves as a “penny business,” now the recycling industry is estimated to be worth hundreds of billions of dollars each year. Make no mistake, the recycling business is just that – a business, but it has a heart, and its heart is sustainability.

Now more than ever consumers want to know how interacting with a brand can benefit them, and even though it may be unpopular to admit, doing right by the environment isn’t always enough of an incentive to recycle. Recycling can be a hassle: washing, sorting, driving to the depot – and that’s all before the recycling company begins their work. In today’s day and age, when people are busier than ever before– the process needs to be as simple as possible for consumers to receive any benefit from it. They need to know how easy it is to do the right thing for the planet and, more importantly, that it’s a piece of cake to get cash returns on deposits. That’s been Regional Recycling’s focus in bringing their business model into the present day, and that was where we started with their rebrand. 

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. Rebrand.

In line with Regional Recycling’s refinement of the recycling process, we focused on streamlining their messaging into its shortest possible form. We wanted to keep keywords punchy and use terms associated with the environment that were as sleek and fast as their operation. New copy had to reflect rapid changes in recycling and the speed at which it is now carried out by consumers and companies alike.

By taking advantage of the short prefix “re” in recycling, we were able to produce a vocabulary to fit the rapidity of today’s recycling practices. What’s more, the flexibility of the prefix means it can be repurposed, reduced, reused, and recycled in the same manner as plastic or metal. “Re” has the same versatility of the recyclable materials it has come to represent.

How much green is too much?

When it came to Regional Recycling’s new look, we wanted an approach for the art direction that matched the modernity of the rest of the rebrand. Recycling is green. In some places, it’s blue and green, but it’s mostly green. You can’t get away from that for several reasons: green says newness, nature, and action. For that reason, we didn’t want to abandon the color completely, but we wanted a fresh take on it.

We blended blue with green and gave it a metallic tint to create a modern design that would feel just as at home on your phone as it would on the side of one of Regional Recycling’s depots. The color white was also crucial in bringing a sense of cleanliness and space to an industry often associated with grime and clutter. By adding more white space, we were able to let the logo breathe and add a further layer of approachability to the Regional Recycling brand.

Conclusion:

All companies need to regularly refresh their creative to match shifts in consumer habits. The world’s changed a lot since our first meeting with Regional Recycling in 2010. We have guided the organization through two major rebrands, but the latest was perhaps the most integral. In today’s day and age, sustainability is at the front of every consumer’s mind—people are actively searching for easy ways they can help the planet each day. By refining Regional Recycling’s brand to reflect the modernity of their business and cleaning up their logo to remove associations with clutter, we were able to create a rebrand that attracts customers to recycle more, help out the environment, and get paid all at the same time.