The Return to Blue
Brand Positioning
The return
to blue
A new brand positioning only works if it connects strategy, identity, and what a company delivers. Chief Marketing Officer Mike Elbers and Christoph Ringwald, Senior Director Communications and Public Relations, explain how Hager brought the three together.
Over the past eighteen months, you and your team have led a comprehensive repositioning of the Hager brand. What was the trigger?
Elbers: The energy transition is reshaping how buildings work. They need to consume less, generate their own energy, manage it intelligently. In the building sector, where we have been operating for decades, that’s creating new customer relationships for us. Planners, system integrators, facility managers, building owners. These are people who need a partner that thinks in systems, that can support them from design through to operation. We have the solutions and the expertise for that. But the brand we had was still anchored in the product business we grew up with. There was a gap between what Hager can do and how Hager was perceived. The repositioning closes that gap.
There was a gap between what Hager can do and how Hager was perceived. The repositioning closes that gap.
What does the new positioning express that the old one didn’t?
Ringwald: We’ve always stood for safety and simplicity. That hasn’t gone away. But we’ve added a third dimension: intelligence. Connected systems and solutions that help buildings actively manage their energy. That changes what we can offer and who we talk to. A specifier working on a commercial building has different expectations from an installer fitting a consumer unit. The brand now has room for both conversations. That’s new.
Hager is over seventy years old. What role does that history play in a brand built for the future?
Elbers: A central one. The values this company was built on by the Hager family – courage, authenticity, integrity – aren’t historical artefacts. They show up every day in how we work with customers. The closeness, the directness, the willingness to get into a problem together rather than hand down a solution from a distance. Customers tell us that’s what sets Hager apart. It’s a competitive advantage right now, and we’ve made it a central part of the new positioning.
Pulling everything back to one unified blue was a conscious decision: one company, one identity, one direction.
One of the most striking changes is the colour. Why go all in on blue?
Ringwald: Because Hager has always been blue. When we operated under a broader group structure, the visual identity naturally became more diverse – more brands, more colours. Pulling everything back to one unified blue was a conscious decision: one company, one identity, one direction. And internally, the reaction confirmed it was right. Our employees identified with it immediately. That matters enormously when your people are your strongest brand ambassadors.
Better buildings. Better tomorrows. is a confident statement. What gives it weight?
Elbers: The products, systems, and solutions we offer. We just brought genuine innovations to market alongside the new positioning: a switching programme that combines two strong design traditions under the Hager name, the next generation of our EV charging platform, one of the first standardised bidirectional charging solutions for the home market. These are substantial moves.
So, brand positioning and innovation go hand in hand?
Ringwald: They have to. The brand sets the ambition; innovation is how we meet it. One without the other doesn’t work – a bold positioning with nothing behind it is empty, and great products without a clear story don’t land the way they should. Getting both right at the same time is what makes the difference.