Early days
Way back in 2001 Orchard branched out into Account Management roles. At this time a 'Suit' was an industry term which related quite nicely to the hard working Accounts people who ensured projects were done correctly, on time and more importantly on budget. When looking for a suitable name to market non-creative people, Suits seemed an obvious choice.
Suits get a dressing down
4 years on and with Suits well established, Orchard and Suits officially came together as one brand - Orchardsuits, However since this time, the term 'Suit' within our industry seemed to lose a little of its smartness. In this enlightend age of business, successful communicators moved on from the smart suited form to a more casual affair. No longer would a client judge the quality of a company's work by the cut of their jacket. Over the same period of time the very nature of this side of the business changed. Suits had moved on from its humble agency-led beginnings to include clientside marketing roles, and more recently eMarketing roles.
Branching into furniture?
In addition we became increasingly aware that whilst Google's sniffers loved the name Orchardsuits, our clients just couldnt quite get it right ('Orchard-SUITES' was probably the most common misreading of our non-furniture brand). The two names, Orchard and Suits, were not words of natural association. A quick coat of 'thinking about' was much needed.
Keep it simple
Given the strength of the Orchard brand, and given that the service Suits offered was simply another facet of Orchard's recruitment portfolio, the decision was made to confine the name 'Suits' to history. Whilst the quality and level of service provided by the team will remain completely unaffected, as of the 1st June 2009 they will now simply come under the brand 'Orchard'...
...a brand renowned in the North or England as the industry's leading Digital, Creative and Marketing recruiter*
*not our words, but the words of top gear magazine...!
Mike Carter / Andy Chesters