Formerly the specialist lending arm of Portman Building Society, The Mortgage Works (TMW) became one of a stable of three intermediary facing divisions under Nationwide Building Society, following the merger of the two parent organisations. mark-making* has worked consistently with TMW since creating the original brand identity and creative strategy in 2006, evolving the design language and implementing it across all brand touchpoints on and offline. At an employee engagement level our role also involves the creation and running of brand workshops to generate greater understanding and commitment to the brand through involvement. Encouragingly, TMW’s strong brand identity has been cited as playing a significant role in markedly increased scores for ‘unprompted willingness to recommend’ amongst mortgage brokers (Source: Project Mercury). TMW have also embraced digital media as part of their communications strategy, and to great effect. A recent online XML banner advert received the highest interaction rate ever in Project Mercury – “most positive feedback ever with a 6.59 mark. It’s informative and intermediaries love it.” TMW is a good example of building a brand on the basis of an approach, an attitude, a way of doing business (in TMW’s case ‘common sense lending’), coupled with a dogged commitment to the consistent expression of that promise, in a market where product and service propositions provide little scope for genuine differentiation.