By Lucy Davison, Managing Director,
Keen as
Mustard Marketing.
Twenty years ago when I first started working
in the corporate identity and design field, corporate branding were not dirty
words. In the heady days of the 1980’s it was felt that if you could apply the
rules learnt from many years of consumer branding to an organisation’s image,
then the resulting good feeling would increase the volume of business from its
customers, create new customers and improve its stock overall.
Then came the well-documented strings of
corporate identity disasters. From British Airways and Consignia to the 2012
Olympics logo, branding became everyone’s favourite punch bag.
Not surprisingly it is my belief that these
high profile ‘mistakes’ have earned the corporate branding industry a
reputation it does not deserve. For those of us who work in this area, it’s
hard to laugh at the irony of corporate branding having a negative public image.
If you read the shock-horror media
headlines criticising branding, they focus very strongly on just two issues -
the look of the logo or symbol and the cost of the re-brand. But there is so
much more to branding than this. In my view the visual result is only a small
part of what branding is about. And the costs bandied around in newspapers are
frequently for hugely expensive items such as the cost of painting the tail
fins of aeroplanes or creating massive quantities of promotional merchandise.
Even when costs do include the consultants’ fee, the perception is of poor
value for money because much what branding does for organisations is invisible.
The well known reasons for undertaking a
branding exercise – standing out, communicating clearly and in a motivating
way, reinforcing relationships and creating loyalty with customers, donors and
stakeholders and ultimately capturing more of the market – are frequently
discussed. But the invisible benefits are not often mentioned because they are
mostly internal. A well executed branding exercise will change your
organisation – in the right way. It will create understanding and motivation
among your staff and service users. They will start to pull in the same
direction for the greater good of your charity. They will become true
ambassadors, creating a powerful virtual circle and further building loyalty
and stand out externally. But the goodwill, energy and clarity generated in
this way is not often the focus of branding exercises.
The extent to which this is misunderstood is
very clear. A few months ago we were pitching the plan and process for a brand
identity project to a charity panel. Our process involved extensive
consultations, workshops, research and brainstorming with the staff and stakeholders
as well as the service users of the two charities that were to be merged. That
we had misjudged our presentation became clear as towards the end of the
meeting one member of the panel said ‘I can’t believe we need to go through all
that just for a logo’. Needless to say we didn’t win the job!
Experience tells me that integrating the
rebrand in your overall strategy (led by the CEO) is vital to success. By
involving people you clarify messages and galvanise the team, giving staff and
supporters a strong vision of their individual role in success. Not only this,
but you will have given ownership to the team internally and will have a much
smoother ride for the new name or visual logo change; and greater impact once
the new image is launched.
I wanted to find out if charities that had
recently gone through a rebrand felt the same way as the man from the charity
panel or if they believed that the process of branding was important, worth
spending time and energy on and whether it was ultimately of value to them and
that their organisations.
In this quest to find the true benefit of
branding to charities I spoke to Roly Owers, the CEO of one organisation that
has recently rebranded – World Horse Welfare (which changed its name in August
from the International League for the Protection of Horses). He had three clear
pieces of learning from the re-branding process that I believe give a strong
foundation for undertaking these projects for all charities. First of all, he
argued strongly for making the business case clear before you start. As he
says, “making the case for what you are trying to do as a charity and how you
can justify time and money on the process is the first priority. We had to put
the resources into it. We had made a commitment based on our previous
experience, but didn’t know what the outcome of the first stage research would
be so made a bit of a leap of faith.” Above all they had to demonstrate that
the investment they made in the process of rebranding would reap strong rewards
for horses.
The second point that Roly Owers makes is how
imperative it is from the outset to involve as broad a spread of people as
possible in the project. For a charity like World Horse Welfare which relies on
private donations, it is particularly essential. Indeed for this project WHW
canvassed the opinions of every single one of its supporters. As Roly Owers
says “One of most important things is to take people with you. If you
jump them, they will be resistant”. Getting external as well as internal stakeholders
involved is also key for charities that provide services to local authorities
or government agencies to involve their target audience in the process. If you
are ‘pitching’ to ‘clients’ such as local authorities, getting potential
targets involved in your internal strategies is a very effective way of
embedding them in your organisation as well as ensuring that the messages you
are conveying are appropriate and powerful.
The third point that Roly Owers sees as
important for charities embarking on a rebranding project is to address the
negative public image of corporate identity that I mentioned earlier. He points
out “it’s very difficult to be any thing but defensive. Thanks to the
rebranding mistakes from The Post Office among others, as soon as you say
‘rebranding’ to any member of the public they say ‘absolute rubbish, spend it on horses!’ We realised that how we did it
was going to be as important as the justification. If we messed up how we
rolled it out it would have set us back years”.
Stephen Rogers, managing director of
Strategic Fusion, the agency that created the new identity for World Horse
Welfare, also talks about the importance of involving all of the key interest
groups at this early stage in order to formulate the right strategy way before
designers put creative pens to paper. Strategic Fusion’s first job with WHW was
to carry out an audit with management, staff and supporters to generate a deep
understanding of the organisation. “The first stage is immersion: understand
the people, strategy, competition, stakeholders –from all front line staff to
the CEO”.
After this phase of qualitative research the
charity knew it was on the right track for name and identity change but wanted
to then to research its supporter base to find out what they felt. This meant
sending a questionnaire to 50,000 people. They had over 3,000 replies.
The questionnaire went to staff as well. Not wanting to limit responses, the
charity and agency made all the questions open-ended (a market researcher’s nightmare)
and were amazed about the detail and care of the response they got, down to
drawings of logo ideas.
Only after all this research and inclusion
were name ideas developed and relevant supporting imagery discussed.
Stephen Rogers cites another animal charity,
The Dog’s Trust, which was rebranded a few years ago by agency Interbrand as
another best practice example. The Dog’s Trust also contacted all its
supporters through Wag! Magazine before embarking on the project and asked if
they agreed with a name change. 80% agreed, 10% were happy to leave the
decision to the charity and 10% disagreed. Like WHW they conducted market
research into their brand and those of the competitors in order to establish
the brief. And they realised the value of a specialist agency to take them
through the whole process. The Dog’s Trust made sure to communicate
clearly that the cost of the name change would be low and that the reasons for
the change were to raise more money and of course to re-home more dogs.
According to Clarissa Baldwin OBE, the Dogs
Trust CEO, there have been clear benefits: “Less than five years later,
our spontaneous awareness is twice as high as it was before the change. We’re
also raising considerably more from both donations and legacies. Most
importantly, we’re rehoming more dogs. Dogs Trust is now the largest dog
welfare charity in the UK and cares for 16,000 dogs per year.”
For Roly Owers it has been the integration of
the identity with the people and strategy that has been of most benefit. “I
went round all farms around the country showing where we could be going over
next 4 – 5 years. Critical to that is raising our profile and critical to that
is changing our image”. He recognises that selling in the end result of the
process was made much easier by having involved everyone in the early stages:
“We presented to staff in March and they were overwhelmingly positive about it.
A couple of our field staff went from being quite anti in 2007 to quite clearly
saying yes we understand why we’re doing it.”
Non-profits, just like commercial
organisations, have recognised the value of having a strong brand for some
time. With a downturn in corporate and individual donations due to the
current economic conditions, that there is even greater competition amongst
charities to attract funding, which means standing out and being able to
communicate the charity’s mission in a compelling and memorable way. In
addition, we are now in an intense phase of charity mergers and acquisitions,
which is driving the need for more rebranding in this sector.
It is clear that to survive in the current
crowded competitive environment charities need to stand out to survive, but
charities must not lose sight of the real benefits of branding. It’s not just
about the look of the logo or the catchiness of the name or strapline. It’s
about generating a consistent and clear vision for your organisation and
planning how to get there. Branding is 75% below the surface. I would urge
charities to submerge and thrive!
Then came the well-documented strings of
corporate identity disasters. From British Airways and Consignia to the 2012
Olympics logo, branding became everyone’s favourite punch bag.
Not surprisingly it is my belief that these
high profile ‘mistakes’ have earned the corporate branding industry a
reputation it does not deserve. For those of us who work in this area, it’s
hard to laugh at the irony of corporate branding having a negative public
image.
If you read the shock-horror media
headlines criticising branding, they focus very strongly on just two issues -
the look of the logo or symbol and the cost of the re-brand. But there is so
much more to branding than this. In my view the visual result is only a small
part of what branding is about. And the costs bandied around in newspapers are
frequently for hugely expensive items such as the cost of painting the tail
fins of aeroplanes or creating massive quantities of promotional
merchandise. Even when costs do include the consultants’ fee, the
perception is of poor value for money because much what branding does for
organisations is invisible.
The well known reasons for undertaking a
branding exercise – standing out, communicating clearly and in a motivating
way, reinforcing relationships and creating loyalty with customers, donors and
stakeholders and ultimately capturing more of the market – are frequently
discussed. But the invisible benefits are not often mentioned because they are
mostly internal. A well executed branding exercise will change your
organisation – in the right way. It will create understanding and motivation
among your staff and service users. They will start to pull in the same
direction for the greater good of your charity. They will become true
ambassadors, creating a powerful virtual circle and further building loyalty
and stand out externally. But the goodwill, energy and clarity generated in
this way is not often the focus of branding exercises.
The extent to which this is misunderstood is
very clear. A few months ago we were pitching the plan and process for a brand
identity project to a charity panel. Our process involved extensive
consultations, workshops, research and brainstorming with the staff and
stakeholders as well as the service users of the two charities that were to be
merged. That we had misjudged our presentation became clear as towards the end
of the meeting one member of the panel said ‘I can’t believe we need to go
through all that just for a logo’. Needless to say we didn’t win the job!
Experience tells me that integrating the
rebrand in your overall strategy (led by the CEO) is vital to success. By
involving people you clarify messages and galvanise the team, giving staff and
supporters a strong vision of their individual role in success. Not only this,
but you will have given ownership to the team internally and will have a much
smoother ride for the new name or visual logo change; and greater impact once
the new image is launched.
I wanted to find out if charities that had
recently gone through a rebrand felt the same way as the man from the charity
panel or if they believed that the process of branding was important, worth
spending time and energy on and whether it was ultimately of value to them and
that their organisations.
In this quest to find the true benefit of
branding to charities I spoke to Roly Owers, the CEO of one organisation that
has recently rebranded – World Horse Welfare (which changed its name in August
from the International League for the Protection of Horses). He had three clear
pieces of learning from the re-branding process that I believe give a strong
foundation for undertaking these projects for all charities. First of all, he
argued strongly for making the business case clear before you start. As he says,
“making the case for what you are trying to do as a charity and how you can
justify time and money on the process is the first priority. We had to put the
resources into it. We had made a commitment based on our previous experience,
but didn’t know what the outcome of the first stage research would be so made a
bit of a leap of faith.” Above all they had to demonstrate that the investment
they made in the process of rebranding would reap strong rewards for horses.
The second point that Roly Owers makes is how
imperative it is from the outset to involve as broad a spread of people as
possible in the project. For a charity like World Horse Welfare which relies on
private donations, it is particularly essential. Indeed for this project WHW
canvassed the opinions of every single one of its supporters. As Roly Owers
says “One of most important things is to take people with you. If you
jump them, they will be resistant”. Getting external as well as internal
stakeholders involved is also key for charities that provide services to local
authorities or government agencies to involve their target audience in the
process. If you are ‘pitching’ to ‘clients’ such as local authorities, getting
potential targets involved in your internal strategies is a very effective way
of embedding them in your organisation as well as ensuring that the messages
you are conveying are appropriate and powerful.
The third point that Roly Owers sees as
important for charities embarking on a rebranding project is to address the
negative public image of corporate identity that I mentioned earlier. He points
out “it’s very difficult to be any thing but defensive. Thanks to the
rebranding mistakes from The Post Office among others, as soon as you say ‘rebranding’
to any member of the public they say ‘absolute rubbish,
spend it on horses!’ We realised that how we did it was going to be as
important as the justification. If we messed up how we rolled it out it would
have set us back years”.
Stephen Rogers, managing director of
Strategic Fusion, the agency that created the new identity for World Horse
Welfare, also talks about the importance of involving all of the key interest
groups at this early stage in order to formulate the right strategy way before
designers put creative pens to paper. Strategic Fusion’s first job with WHW was
to carry out an audit with management, staff and supporters to generate a deep
understanding of the organisation. “The first stage is immersion: understand
the people, strategy, competition, stakeholders –from all front line staff to
the CEO”.
After this phase of qualitative research the
charity knew it was on the right track for name and identity change but wanted
to then to research its supporter base to find out what they felt. This meant
sending a questionnaire to 50,000 people. They had over 3,000 replies.
The questionnaire went to staff as well. Not wanting to limit responses, the
charity and agency made all the questions open-ended (a market researcher’s nightmare)
and were amazed about the detail and care of the response they got, down to
drawings of logo ideas.
Only after all this research and inclusion
were name ideas developed and relevant supporting imagery discussed.
Stephen Rogers cites another animal charity,
The Dog’s Trust, which was rebranded a few years ago by agency Interbrand as
another best practice example. The Dog’s Trust also contacted all its
supporters through Wag! Magazine before embarking on the project and asked if
they agreed with a name change. 80% agreed, 10% were happy to leave the
decision to the charity and 10% disagreed. Like WHW they conducted market
research into their brand and those of the competitors in order to establish
the brief. And they realised the value of a specialist agency to take them
through the whole process. The Dog’s Trust made sure to communicate
clearly that the cost of the name change would be low and that the reasons for
the change were to raise more money and of course to re-home more dogs.
According to Clarissa Baldwin OBE, the Dogs
Trust CEO, there have been clear benefits: “Less than five years later,
our spontaneous awareness is twice as high as it was before the change. We’re
also raising considerably more from both donations and legacies. Most importantly,
we’re rehoming more dogs. Dogs Trust is now the largest dog welfare
charity in the UK and cares for 16,000 dogs per year.”
For Roly Owers it has been the integration of
the identity with the people and strategy that has been of most benefit. “I
went round all farms around the country showing where we could be going over
next 4 – 5 years. Critical to that is raising our profile and critical to that
is changing our image”. He recognises that selling in the end result of the
process was made much easier by having involved everyone in the early stages:
“We presented to staff in March and they were overwhelmingly positive about it.
A couple of our field staff went from being quite anti in 2007 to quite clearly
saying yes we understand why we’re doing it.”
Non-profits, just like commercial
organisations, have recognised the value of having a strong brand for some
time. With a downturn in corporate and individual donations due to the
current economic conditions, that there is even greater competition amongst
charities to attract funding, which means standing out and being able to
communicate the charity’s mission in a compelling and memorable way. In
addition, we are now in an intense phase of charity mergers and acquisitions,
which is driving the need for more rebranding in this sector.
It is clear that to survive in the current crowded competitive environment
charities need to stand out to survive, but charities must not lose sight of
the real benefits of branding. It’s not just about the look of the logo or the
catchiness of the name or strapline. It’s about generating a consistent and
clear vision for your organisation and planning how to get there. Branding is
75% below the surface. I would urge charities to submerge and thrive!