Rise Underfloor Heating

From range gap to brand asset

The market nobody had claimed

Underfloor heating is one of the UK's fastest-growing home improvement categories, a £193m market and climbing, with electric UFH alone worth £42m and rising. Topps Group was already in it. What it didn't have was a product it owned.

Established brands held the shelf space and the search results. Online competitors kept pushing prices down. And without a range of its own, Topps had no control over margin, no way to build loyalty, and no credible mid-market option to offer trade customers.

Premium was covered with established brands assuming the trade would handle everything but offering avid DIYers little support. Budget alternatives competed on cost and felt like a compromise. Nobody occupied the middle ground of accessibility, reliability, trust, and ease.

Solution: create a brand worth owning

Our research could have chased spec, installation ease or price. Instead, we kept landing somewhere else; whether the customer was an installer pricing a client’s job or a homeowner tackling their own bathroom floor, the same questions cropped up. Is this easy to buy and fit? Can I trust it? Is it right for my project? With gas legislation on the horizon, should I be doing this now rather than later?

The barrier wasn’t price or product quality. It was confidence. And that’s what reframed the brief. Don’t just fill the range gap, but plug the void with a brand that makes underfloor heating feel achievable for the trade and the DIYer.

The idea: all RISE

We took that ‘lack of confidence’ insight and built on it in a way that would resonate with both audiences. Creating a brand that works for the trade without patronising and instill confidence in the DIYer without losing them.

The name had to work without explaining itself. Heat rises. RISE: one syllable, unambiguous, forward-facing, and doubling down on product name and its brand promise.

The design took that further. The E in RISE is built from radiating heat bars, warmth moving upward from a surface. The identity was a product demonstration. Packaging follows the same logic: brand, product and USPs, written in language clear enough for a first-time fitter and credible enough for an experienced pro. The high-intensity orange, lifted from RISE’s own heating cable, ties the visual identity back to the physical product.

Every touchpoint; in store, online, on Amazon, was designed to make a trade pro or DIY enthusiast feel capable, before they even opened the box.

Warming to the idea

The underfloor heating sell usually relies on the spec sheet: wattage, cable spacing, insulation grades. All useful, but not reasons to buy. So, we purposely positioned RISE as no nonsense with no jargon. A product that’s ‘affordable and effective’, ‘easy to fit and use’ and designed for ‘peace of mind’. All the technical proof; TÜV Rheinland testing, the lifetime Safeguard guarantee, is still in there, but that’s background reassurance rather than lead messaging.

Going beyond the category

RISE is a case study in what happens when a commercial problem gets a brand solution, instead of a product one. The brief was to recover margin, fill a range gap with a plausible option and open new channels. The brand had to do all of it without looking like a budget compromise or talking down to the people buying it.

The insight not only informed the name; it shaped the whole range - the packaging hierarchy, the tone of voice, and the digital discoverability strategy. It gave Topps Group a brand asset it owns outright, built to grow with a category that’s only heading in one direction.

The floor is yours

The underfloor heating category will only get louder. Retrofit demand is on the rise as more households tile, insulate and rethink energy use. RISE didn’t actually need to win the argument for underfloor heating. It just had to step in as the easiest solution, without compromising on quality or effectiveness.

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