Introduction and Project Overview
In 2023 IMO Car Wash decided it was time to rebrand their estate with a whole new look, enhancing their presence around the country, and thereby creating a consistent image that would become instantly recognisable. Coupled with this IMO wanted to launch a new and exciting ‘Ceramic XTR’ premium wash with the intention of elevating their business to new heights for their 14 million customers.
Blaze Signs worked closely with IMO to work out how to best implement the new image and providing the most impactful experience of their customers leaving them wanting to come back for more exploring a wide range of materials, imagery, lighting solutions and material finishes.
Our Project Team was tasked with delivering the roll-out of 130 sites over a 7month period, completely transforming how the UK experienced their favourite car wash brand when visiting. With the branding guidelines having already been developed between IMO and Blaze, a detailed survey of the site and its approach routes was undertaken to create a site-specific design proposal that both increased site visibility, and best showcased the new brand.
The team implemented new processes and advanced project management methods of working to increase our productivity and personnel effectiveness, which included a cloud-based file sharing system, where each aspect of any given site could be uploaded to a secure digital environment for sharing and collaboration between our own teams and the customer. Whether it was site run plans, survey details, design schemes, technical drawings, or site plans, every document needed to make the concept a reality could easily be found and kept up to date.
This greatly reduced the time to approval by the customer for each site, and when coupled with a fully numbered signage catalogue system, the entire process through to invoicing was sped up, making this the most efficient project we’ve ever completed and changing the game for the Blaze Projects Team for other projects and customers.
Signage suite
Each element of the car wash had its own unique design solution, beginning with a wrap-around fascia sign formed from self-coloured Dibond sheets, resulting in a super slim depth of only 25mm with internal aluminium brackets for additional strength. The fascia’s were applied with digitally printed logos and vinyl text displaying the new logo and the strapline “The world’s favourite car wash.” Feature LED lighting was affixed to the top of the fascia’s used throughout the estate to highlight the building during those dark evenings and early mornings.
Building cladding was also applied to each site using self-coloured Di-bond in the IMO Car Wash RAL colour and these were further applied with full colour digitally printed graphics. Each car wash building would then be completed with treatments to the windows using a mix of opaque and contra vision vinyl of the light blue bubble design, this took incredible precision by all parties, including the designers, printers, and installation teams to ensure the imagery flowed around the building seamlessly.
With the building itself complete, additional signs around the site were updated to tie in, including Totems, post-mounted informational and marketing signs, POS signs, vacuums and the goalpost signage every customer drives under to get their car wash journey underway. Each of these types of sign used different manufacturing techniques, whether it was the laser cut apertures for the goalpost signage, digitally printed vinyl’s applied for vacuums, router cut acrylic or the folding of aluminium panels for the, totems, goalposts and practically everything else…
Types of site
As you would expect the sites within the IMO estate came in all shapes, and sizes resulting in a bespoke delivery however there were a number of buildings that had similarities meaning cladding and fascia solutions were able to be built for stock. The truly unique buildings such as Swindon, Aldershot & Taunton could not follow this approach.
The overall result was that every IMO Car Wash up and down the country followed the same design principals and a clear delivery theme tied all the stores together.
The installation phase of each project was typically carried out within a week, with the cladding and fascia signage found on each elevation of the car wash being the most intensive part of the process. This aspect could take up to three days to complete, with the old signage taken down through to the completed cladding in place included. Help was on hand for the installation of the window graphics by dedicated vinyl teams, which we kept in close communication with to ensure they followed our programme timings.
Roll-out benefits
The roll-out of the new brand across the IMO Car Wash estate saw massive benefits not only for the maximised consistency of brand experience no matter where in the UK customers use the service, but also for the business in terms of increased revenue and footfall. Customers have absolutely taken notice of the new brand image and responded by choosing IMO as their service provider. All in all, over 130 sites across the UK were completed by the Blaze Team, ranging massively in geographic location – from Plymouth, Llanelli, Dundee, Folkestone to Londonderry in Northern Ireland. Each site was achieved by a meticulous attention to detail in the planning and design phase by our projects and design departments, which allowed for a smoother roll-out process.
We utilised the latest in cloud-based services and technology to quickly share progress of each site with our teams internally as well as with the client, which gave them a new level of insight to the rebrand process. All the while, this was completed within the client’s budget, and at a pace that they considered exceptional!
