What makes a shared brand feel local to employees?

A shared brand can feel local to employees by visibly recognising the people, places and heritage they already value. A common identity can include employees' names and distinctive local imagery rather than make every office look interchangeable.

Give local belonging a place in the shared identity

Give employees' individual contributions and local heritage a visible role in the shared brand. For First Names Group, employee and stakeholder interviews identified people, and the confidence and trust they instilled, as central to the business. Following a management buyout, the trust and corporate services business needed a unifying vision across numerous global locations and siloed teams.

The new First Names Group identity featured the actual first names of every employee. Commissioned photography of the business's distinct locations brought local heritage, pride and commitment to local communities into the shared visual language. Employees encountered the new brand simultaneously through a short film starring employees, screened in local cinemas. The identity also appeared on business cards, launch packs and in offices.

The practical approach is to make local recognition part of the identity itself, not just a launch message. A 2025 study by the Institute of Internal Communication, with Ipsos Karian and Box, found that 64% of UK employees say their job is an important part of their identity.

Sources: First Names Group: total rebrand, The inside story: why your people shouldn't be just passengers on your brand journey

How The Frameworks helps

Connecting local and shared identities

Your employees need to recognise their place in a shared brand without losing their sense of local belonging. The Frameworks pays particular attention to how employees in different locations understand the business and what they value about their existing identity. Through employee and stakeholder interviews, it works with you to bring those perspectives into brand development, so decisions about a shared identity reflect the people it needs to represent, not just a central view of the organisation.

The Frameworks develops shared brand identities, explanatory materials and coordinated employee launches that connect the wider business with employees' experience of it. These give you both an identity informed by local perspectives and a way to explain its meaning across teams and locations. You can introduce the brand with a clear account of how employees' views have shaped it, helping people understand what they belong to and how their own workplace fits within it.

Let’s talk about local belonging in your brand 

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