Green Acres gets whole new wardrobe for 21st birthday

Green Acres gets whole new wardrobe for 21st birthday

Auckland, 18 October 2012 – Home services franchise company Green Acres will be sporting a smart new look as it celebrates its 21st birthday.

Founded in 1991 with a folksy house-and-lawn logo, the company has been sporting the same look on vans, the web, t-shirts and stationery ever since. Unsurprisingly that livery’s now looking a little dated.

The folksy look no longer reflects the company’s size, scope and sophistication. Around $60 million in revenues now passes through the group every year and the average value of its franchises has increased by almost 50percent since 2007.

Over the last five years Green Acres has been quietly consolidating and refining a remarkably successful and durable brand. In that time it has added over 130 franchisees, extended its leadership in the home services sector (it now has more franchisees than its nearest three competitors combined), and introduced new tools, mobile technologies and systems that help franchisees run their businesses better and keep the business ahead of its competitors.

“We commissioned advertising supremo Mike Hutcheson and his company &some to come up with a look that better reflects what Green Acres is today,” says Green Acres CEO, Logan Sears. “It needed to address our full range of service offerings, the sophistication of our systems and the fundamental promise we make to deliver a professional, personal and very efficient service to customers every day.”

“The challenge was to create, with a single image, a story about all that Green Acres can do to help people maintain a home that they can be proud of,” says Mike. “We started with the tools, people and labour involved and worked to frame these in an elegant device.”

The new identity neatly showcases all of Green Acres’ services within a single image, using modern, stylised icons and pictograms artfully arranged to form the greater shape of a house. “The image represents – with beautiful simplicity – everything Green Acres does to create quality time for its customers by taking care of the domestic tasks that they can’t find enough hours in the day to deal with,” says Mike.

The company’s sophistication is deeply embedded within its systems. Green Acres has worked with online accounting software company, Xero, to make its franchisees more productive.

“When you’re providing home services, you’re selling time, so your time is at a premium,” says Xero CEO, Rod Drury. “For franchisees, having simple, readily accessible information makes a direct contribution to the bottom line. It means they can spend less time on the accounts, and more time with their customers. They can invoice customers, enter receipts and check the status of their accounts from their mobile phones, while they’re out working.”

“From a corporate perspective, using Xero also allows Green Acres to add important back office processes to its franchise offering, giving the company total visibility of what is happening in its franchise network. That level of integration means that accounting and finance is as much a part of the Green Acres’ system as consistent branding and operational standards. We're thrilled that Green Acres has integrated its franchise systems with Xero to create a seamless operating platform for the entire team.”

Green Acres also works with its bank, ANZ National, to streamline banking services for the franchisees. Around two-thirds of these franchisees bank with National Bank.

“We’re looking forward to the ANZ and National Bank brands coming together,” says Logan. “It will be easier and simpler to have our corporate business and the majority of our franchisees’ businesses together under a single brand.”
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