Carefully chronicled by the Court Historians of Siniat, with due reverence.
A whisper in the west wing
Long before the Crown was forged and the hashtag carved into the scrolls of our LinkedIn page, there was but a whisper. No sinister business here – not weird, creepy, Scooby-Doo types, but a shy one. The sort that was meant as a shout but hadn’t quite found its voice yet. The sort that rustles behind office doors and in the dark corners of Teams calls.
Shouldn't more people know who we are?
We had, in our own humble opinion, been doing some good things, for a good length of time. Pioneering products, levelling up technical excellence, generally being the kind of business you'd want in your corner during a tricky build. But still, outside of a select (nye sensible) few, the name Siniat wasn’t being said quite enough.
Thus began the debate. The one that echoes through marketing decks for all of time - the one about awareness.
The cast of the court
No tale is complete without its characters. This one had more than its fair share of bold figures:
His Sovereign of Strategy, Lord of Wakefield..ish: John Sinfield, Country Manager, Etex BP. Partial to football, fond of purple, fearless in the face of complacency.
The Knights of the Crown Ledger: specification and commercial teams. Elite. Tenacious. Often seen in high-vis cloaks.
The Royal Alchemists of Board and System: Siniat technical. If it can be built, they’ll know how. If it shouldn’t be built, they will definitely tell you.
The Keepers of the Scrolls: the marketing department. Wielders of words, stewards of stickers, authors of limericks.
The Council of the Purple Robes: Our agency partners, summoned with a single brief: make it unforgettable.
And the full royal household, tireless stewards of supply chain, customer service, HR, finance, quality, EHS, operations, IT, and all those who keep the castle standing.
The purple prologue
It all began, as all good things do, with a football fan who had a strange idea.
Our Country Manager, looking out upon his beloved city of Manchester, declared unto the gathered few:
‘Manchester isn’t red or blue. It’s purple’.
It was a moment. Our version of the Lady of the Lake presenting Excalibur, but with drier socks.
His point was noble. Purple was and still is spreading like wildfire across Manchester. If you’ve ever played ‘I Spy’ with your kids near a city-centre build, you’ve probably seen it. Boldly, unapologetically purple: a beacon of rain resistance.
We leaned in hard. With rhyming couplets.
The poetic uprising
And thus, the Keepers of the Scrolls went hard into bard mode. Poems popped up across LinkedIn.
It was eccentric. Oddly delightful. It made people smile.
What’s more, it made them remember. Purple became a point of conversation. And then the Sovereign issued another decree.
The crowning directive
Purple is to become synonymous with plasterboard, he said.
Suffice to say that drywall had become synonymous with a certain sameness. He wanted none of it.
Because he believed in the work we were doing. The strength of the product, the power of the people. It was high time to stop being shy.
And so the Court gathered its’ marketing agency. A vision was summoned: cinematic, iconic. Something worthy of making an entire industry look twice.
A scroll is summoned
The name Purple Reign was born in fairly early days, and unanimously settled upon. The first target – building internal advocacy – was next to be tackled. A then-upcoming annual commercial conference seemed the most conveniently placed hoop to shoot through.
A teaser trailer began production. It was to be shown in secret, and then quietly unleashed to a small, prepared audience as a hint of what was to come. Later. Much later.
Naturally, what happened next was chaos.
The great unravelling
The trailer aired. It was good. Very good.
So good, in fact, that #PurpleReign started trending in our corner of the construction internet. Teammates hadn’t been briefed to keep schtum – we hadn’t told them not to post - because it hadn’t occurred to us they would.
Cue mild panic. The scribes of the Scrolls assembled. We had momentum, but no plan. So we did what all great empires do when faced with chaos.
We improvised.
The graffiti rebellion
At rapid pace, stickers were printed and crowns were crafted. We briefed our teams in hushed tones and sent purple whispers away into the land. We decided we’d launch the teaser campaign properly at our factory expansion opening: a jewel of an event that was still, technically, a secret (though everyone knew).
The Purple Reign was in sight.
Coronation day
And so rolled about June 17th, now widely referred to as Purple Day.
Our internal launch. Our external announcement. All on one glorious – thankfully, sunny – day.
A purple Weather Defence suit was donned. Lorries gleamed in their royal finery. There was ice cream, presentations… and a throne. Of course.
The reign begins
Purple Reign is not a campaign. It’s who we are. It’s our statement of intent.
It means no more hiding. It means stepping forward and saying: we lead. Not someday, but now.
It means building capacity to match ambition. Offering not just great products, but great people. Great systems. Great service.
It means listening carefully, and responding quickly. Supporting our customers like old friends. Holding out a hand to lead together.
It means real tools that serve real needs. Product systems that make sense. Conversations that lead somewhere better.
It also means embracing the power of a little bit of fun. Of being recognisable. Of bringing a little smile to your face.
A very royal decree
By order of the Court of Siniat, in the year of the Purple Reign,
Let it be known, throughout the construction kingdoms and across all drywall dominions, that purple now reigns.
Not by accident.
Not by habit.
By boldness.
By brilliance.
By building better.
Long live the Reign.
