A brand & messaging direction for ATAG UK
Sell it the way it’s built
The most over-engineered boiler in the category introduces itself with a piggy bank. The fix is one governing idea, and most of it you’ve already written.
The tension
The product is premium. The introduction is a discount offer.
Both sides are real ATAG claims, in use today. The right-hand column is the one a new installer meets first.
The recommendation
The fix is one governing idea, put at the front of everything.
The governing idea · a test, not a strapline
ATAG is the best boiler for your customer — and the best partner for your business.
The line is a test for what every surface says, not a headline to print. Every claim ATAG makes today keeps its place, ranked under this one idea. Most of the words already exist in your own materials.
The ask
Three agreements to leave Dunfermline with.
Everything after this slide is the evidence for these three.
The biggest single opportunity is the front of the funnel: arming installers to sell ATAG, not just to buy it.
One idea leads; everything else becomes supporting proof. The line on the previous slide is my recommendation, and a better one is welcome if it clears the same bar.
Idea first, the brochure rebuild behind it, then ten installer conversations to validate the language before it runs cold.
What’s strong
ATAG looks after the installers it already has very well, and its strongest brand writing already exists. Neither is visible to the installers it still needs to win.
Once an installer joins
Support for existing partners is excellent, and hard for rivals to copy.
Three parts stand out. All of them sit behind the sign-up, where an unconvinced installer never sees them.
Fitting 30 boilers a year can earn an installer over £500k in servicing income across the warranty period, and the portal’s live calculator shows them exactly that.
A named, photographed rep on every portal page, live video support from a technician on a partner’s first install, and a seven-day helpline behind both.
The servicing income from an install stays with the installer who made it. A manufacturer selling through merchants would struggle to promise that.
The record
Homeowners rate the product highly, and they hear about it from their installer.
Those reviews suggest the installer’s recommendation is how ATAG reaches most of the homeowners it wins. That is why so much of this deck is about what the installer is equipped to say.
The part I didn’t expect
Your strongest brand writing sits where a new installer will never see it.
“We’re different from the others… we exist to support only you, our ATAG Partner Installers.”
The identity statement · sent only in a loyalty email to installers who already bought
“Homeowners can’t shop your boiler pricing online. You control the margin.”
The best pitch · spoken in sales calls, printed nowhere
“Watch a 3-ton Land Rover drive over our heat exchanger… truly indestructible.”
The most premium proof · parked in the archive
“Think the same way as your customers… one system designed to work together… helps them say yes.”
Proof one idea can govern a range · used once, on one product line
None of the four reaches the installer you still have to win. The words for the front of the funnel are already written; they just aren’t used there.
What’s weak
What a cold installer meets is close to the reverse: a threat headline, a piggy bank, and ten ideas competing at the same volume.
The front door
The surfaces most likely to reach a cold installer all lead with price or threat.
- Buy direct and save £ hundreds per boiler
- Win more business and boost your margins
- …plus five more, all at the same volume
“The boiler you offer your homeowner customers has near zero effect on them choosing you… you are the product.”
“By buying direct, our partners save £ hundreds per boiler… boost their margins.”
None of this is lazy work; each piece has been tested and tuned hard. The problem is what the pieces add up to when no one idea has been chosen to lead.
The patterns
Three patterns run through the whole library.
A piggy bank and “SAVE £ HUNDREDS” sit on top of an 18-year warranty and the most efficient boiler in Europe, with “Premium” and “Low Prices” sharing a single black bar.
The postcard alone stacks seven co-equal benefits. Your own team has spotted it: the sales script warns reps in bold, “Do not ATAG feature dump.”
Among 43 pages of creative there is not one homeowner-facing asset, and the manual built for that job opens by telling installers the boiler barely matters.
The cost
The email numbers show where this costs you.
Installers are curious enough to open the emails; almost nothing inside earns a click. The next slide shows what actually earns the click when they do.
What the data says
Nothing clears your own click target, and the ranking tells you why.
Mean click rate by message type · emails to cold installers, Jan–Jun 2026 · dashed line is your own 1.5% target
The gaps are small, but the order is consistent: a named person beats every anti-merchant argument, and the offer comes last. Installers respond to people, and the ATAG name isn’t yet carrying an idea.
The deepest gap
For the hardest question in the sale, the installer has nothing to show and no line to say.
Everything in the kit answers why an installer should buy ATAG: margin, servicing income, the moat. Almost nothing answers what they say to the homeowner. It lands hardest on installers who are running a business rather than living the craft; they need the brand to do the convincing for them, and the one document written for that job opens with “you are the product”.
My guess at what follows, one the installer conversations would test: the familiar Worcester or Vaillant wins by default, and “the customer preferred it” becomes the polite cover story.
The diagnosis, in one line
The job is not invention but promotion: take the idea out of the loyalty email, the phone call and the archive, and put it on the front door.
What we do
One idea leads. Every headline you run today survives, but each one takes a rank and a job beneath it.
The idea, unpacked
Each half of the line has a job, and each makes the other believable.
A value claim, not a price claim: the best boiler on the market at a fair price, built to outlast its own guarantee and cheaper to run for the decade it hangs on the wall. The proof is real: the most efficient boiler in Europe, the longest warranty in the category, and a heat exchanger you can drive a Land Rover over.
Why the installer trusts the first half: ATAG sells direct, so it can’t sell around them, behind them, or against them, and the servicing income from every install stays theirs. The warranty, the live-video support and the named rep make recommending an unfamiliar brand safe.
Your own selling manual says “you are the product”; this line completes the thought. The product story gives installers the words; the partnership makes the words safe to say.
The line that makes the halves agree
It’s the fact you already lead with, told as pride instead of warning. Premium and better value, not premium or better value.
Demotion, not deletion
Nothing gets deleted: every idea gets a rank and a job.
| Today · all at headline volume | Under the lens · its rank and its job |
|---|---|
| Up-to-18-year warranty | Living-room proof the boiler is built to last, backed for longer than anyone backs theirs |
| Most efficient boiler in Europe | Living-room proof of value: lower bills for the life of the boiler |
| The Land Rover film | The story that carries the proof: out of the archive, stripped of the piggy bank |
| Buy direct · no merchants | The reason the price is fair, and the structural reason ATAG can never compete with you |
| Protected margin · can’t be price-shopped | The trade engine: spoken to installers, kept off the homeowner story |
| Ring-fenced data · the servicing annuity | The proof ATAG is on your side: a moat rivals would struggle to copy |
| Named local rep · family firm | The human voice your results already reward: every surface signed by a person |
| Free flues · reward points | Offers in their lane: converting at the till, off the brand’s masthead |
Rebuild one of three · illustrative, to show the move
The selling manual: lead with the installer’s confidence.
“The boiler you offer your homeowner customers has near zero effect on them choosing you to do their work… you are the product.”
When they ask “why not a Worcester?”, you have a straight answer: the boiler a three-ton Land Rover drove over, the most efficient in Europe, backed for up to 18 years, bought direct from the maker.
You don’t have to be a salesperson. You just have to tell the truth about a very good boiler.
Same manual, opened from the installer’s side: a line for the hardest moment in the job, instead of the advice that the selling is all on them. React to the direction, not the copy.
Rebuild two of three · illustrative, to show the move
The winter postcard: one idea, proof beneath it.
- Buy direct and save £ hundreds per boiler
- Win more business and boost your margins
- 12-year standard warranty, 18-year option
- …plus four more, all at the same volume
Dutch-engineered, brass and stainless steel, backed for up to 18 years. Sold direct, so your customers get a premium boiler at a fair price, and nobody can shop your quote around.
One reason to believe instead of seven: the money that would have gone to a merchant goes into a better boiler and stays in your margin.
The talk-track’s “can’t be price-shopped” promoted into print at last, and the discount doing what discounts do best: a reason to try ATAG, not the reason to buy.
Rebuild three of three · illustrative, to show the move
The missing asset: a leave-behind that does the convincing.
“ATAG? Never heard of it. Why not a Worcester?”
Nothing in ATAG’s current library is written for the homeowner’s hands. The installer answers from memory, or reaches for the brand the homeowner already knows.
You probably haven’t heard of ATAG, for a simple reason: it isn’t sold through merchants. Dutch-engineered since 1948, direct from the maker to accredited installers, like yours.
The “never heard of it” question answered head-on rather than dodged, with claims the homeowner can check themselves, from the guarantee terms to the Trustpilot score.
The hardest change
Letting the piggy bank go: what retires, and what stays.
A boiler is a once-a-decade purchase a homeowner worries about, and in that room, cheap reads as risky. The discount stays something you do; it stops being who you are.
- דSAVE £ HUNDREDS” as a headline, and the cash-stuffed piggy bank with it
- דPremium Products · No Merchants · Low Prices” as the face of the brand
- ×The threat frame: “you’re losing business!” as the opening move
- ✓The flue offer and reward points: they convert, installers like them, leave them alone
- ✓The logo, the blue and the typefaces, untouched
- ✓The portal’s look and identity; only its first words change, to what ATAG is
One check first: I’ve assumed the lockup and the piggy bank are ATAG UK’s own marketing devices rather than anything Ariston mandates, which would make them yours to retire.
The decision
The premium lane is open, the tests for any alternative are clear, and three agreements would make the offsite a success.
The open ground
Nobody is claiming the genuinely premium boiler at a fair price, sold through the trade.
| Brand | What they own today | What that leaves open |
|---|---|---|
| Worcester Bosch | The safe default: the name homeowners already know | Unbeatable on familiarity; beatable on conviction |
| Vaillant | “German engineering” | The engineering-heritage story is taken; don’t fight for it |
| Ideal · Baxi | Price and availability | The value tier is crowded: no room, and no prize |
| ATAG today | “No merchants · low prices” | A premium product arguing itself into the budget tier, while the premium lane looks open |
A sketch rather than a market study, but the lane that matters looks open, and the proof already exists: the warranty, the efficiency rating, and the best piece of it on film.
The bar any alternative must clear
If the room prefers a different lead, hold it to the same three tests.
Can the least-confident installer say it in a living room, in one breath?
Is it true only of ATAG?
Does it make the premium product more premium, not less?
The through-line is my best answer to those three. It is not the only possible one, and this is the conversation I most want to have at the offsite.
In closing
The hard part is already done.
The machine, the moat, the product and most of the words already exist. What remains is a decision only you can make: which idea leads. This deck offers a sharpened question and my best first answer; I’ll defend the thinking in the room.
The diagnosis. The biggest single opportunity is the front of the funnel: arming installers to sell ATAG, not just to buy it.
The idea. One governing through-line, everything else demoted to proof beneath it. If a better line clears the same bar, I’ll back it gladly.
The sequence. Idea first, brochures rebuilt behind it, ten installer conversations to validate the language.
Scope: brand, positioning and the words across ATAG UK’s installer-facing surfaces. Not visual identity (logo, colours and typefaces untouched), and not funnel mechanics.
Prepared by Hal Sarjant for ATAG Heating UK · July 2026 · Confidential
The working
The directions weighed and set aside, the honest caveat, and the housekeeping, kept in the deck so nothing important lives only in the long document.
The directions weighed
Four other directions: two absorbed into the line, two set aside.
The moat: “the maker structurally on your side”
True, and hard for a merchant-channel rival to copy, but abstract as a flag: it invites “what’s the catch?” It works better as the engine of the line: the reason the price is fair and the partnership is real.
The people: “a real person who looks after you”
The voice your results reward in every cut of the data, but soft on its own. Inside the line, the people sign the promise the moat makes.
The insider: “the boiler the ones in the know fit”
Your best-opening cold subject lines already lean this way, and the scarcity is real. But the edge on offer is mostly price in disguise, and “cheap because you’re clever” is still cheap. Kept as a flavour of voice, never the flag.
The business partner: “every boiler starts a £500k income”
The truest to what you’ve built, and your strongest retention story, but it persuades the already-convinced and leaves the front of the funnel exactly where it stands. Kept as trade proof, not the lead.
The honest soft spot
Leading premium is the one angle you’ve never tested. The bet is still rational.
Every other lever in your marketing has been A/B’d hard; this one would start with no data behind it. I won’t dress that up. Two things make it a good bet anyway.
Every tested angle to date has been a variation on price, threat or offer. Whatever a premium lead is worth, no one has tested it yet.
Ten honest conversations with installers to find the language that lands, then the winning version run against your current control, the way you’d test anything else. The same conversations settle which kind of installer dominates your base.
Housekeeping
Sequence, tidy-ups, and what this work deliberately didn’t touch.
The brochures are already being rebuilt. Agree the governing idea first and the rebuild happens once, behind one idea, rather than beautifully reprinting ten competing headlines. The cheapest moment to fix the front of the funnel is before the next print run.
The merchant’s cut appears as £590 on one surface and £644 on another, and a premium brand can’t afford a wandering price claim. Nothing structural; a short tidy-up list has been shared separately.
Funnel mechanics: prospecting, follow-up cadence, pricing, conversion tracking. Two things deserve a proper look later (the data can’t yet tell a browser from a buyer, and top-of-funnel traffic is flat), and the installer conversations double as the cheapest first step of that work.