Discovery aligns UK FTA brands with dplay

Discovery UK has today rolled out a major brand refresh across its free-to-air portfolio, including channels Quest, Quest Red, Really, HGTV, Food Network and DMAX.

The new branding is intended to align the free-to-air portfolio with dplay, Discovery’s ad-funded streaming service, enabling seamless viewer journeys across channels, platforms and formats, according to Discovery.

The rebrand was born out of a research study which highlighted the popularity of dplay amongst consumers and its potential as a unifying umbrella brand for the linear channel brands.

The branding work was created in-house by Discovery Creative London based on a refresh of Dplay Nordics by Red Bee Creative last year.

Rebecca Diver Phillips, VP brand strategy, said: “We are proud to unveil a new visual identity for our free-to-air channels. With dplay serving as the unifying brand, it allows viewers to navigate our content across all platforms in a seamless and entertaining way. We are particularly pleased to have been able launch it at this time, while our ‘stay home heroes’ are tuning in to our channels to watch the programmes they know and love.”

Robin Garnett, VP branding and creative, said: “For this ambitious rebrand we’ve adapted a digital-first visual identity to the demands of a linear navigation system, as well as across off-air, social and digital platforms. While the channels each retain their distinct personalities, the shared signature expressions of the dplay brand – inspired by people touching a screen – help to unify our portfolio of brands and create a fluid user journey to discovering more of the real-life content our viewers love.”

The refresch comes amid a major push for dplay from Discovery across international markets.

Speaking on the company’s full-year results analyst call in February, CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels said that Discovery would “supercharge our expansion of dplay in Europe” this year and push ahead with other OTT initiatives.