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Cate KirkbrideHead of Brand Marketing

Until there’s a home for everyone

Re-Brand - an iterative approach

CharityComms Brand Breakfast

October 2014

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Brand Definition

“A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories

and relationships that, taken together, account for a

consumer’s decision to choose one product or service

over another. If the consumer (whether it’s a business, a

buyer, a voter or a donor) doesn’t pay a premium, make

a selection or spread the word, then no brand value

exists for that consumer. ”Seth Godin

And more importantly:

“Design is essential but design is not brand.”

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Some context 2012 was a year of change:

- Pressure on statutory income and re-structure of

services

- New 3 year strategy just set

- Significant increase in FR – both target type ofand

activities e.g. ATL

- Increased number of key corporate partnerships

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An unusual starting point…

Our challenge: Not awareness but understanding –

both of Shelter & housing / homelessness category

Our core identity was working and needed to stay the

same. This was about defining our proposition – who

we are and what we stand for.

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An iterative approach to re-brand

Brand Review / Research

Define proposition and our key attributes

Our Identity

• Defining how we speak

• Defining how we look

• Architecture

Putting our house in order

• Brand measures

• Processes e.g. approvals

• Working with partners

Increasing understanding.

• Describing Shelter

• Our story

• Standard comms e.g. “who we

are” brochure, “About us”

• Advertising

Implementation

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Defining our proposition to put Brand at the heart of our

organisation

Our brand proposition was

introduced to define who we are

and what we stand for.

We identified our key attributes and

put in context of our vision and

strategy “our brand house”

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Our identity was refreshed gradually

How we look then followed…

Photography:

- New photography guidelines

- Developed new roster of photographers who

understood what we needed

- Invested in > 2000 new images over 12

months

Visual refresh

- Defined variable elements such as secondary

colours, illustration style

Architecture under development

How we speak

One standard descriptor

Tone of voice guidelines

Over 80 staff TOV trained

Job ad guidelines

Social media specific guidelines

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Brand Photography – Several months spent developing our image library

and investing in new images before we launched

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We’ll still use our existing palette of

red, black, grey and white for hard-

hitting comms, with the addition of

yellow to add urgency.

We’ve introduced a softer, more

domestic palette for warmer

communications.

Helvetica Neue is still our main

font.

We have introduced an

alternative headline font, from

the Helvetica family, for softer

communications.

We’ve introduced a simple

keyline illustration style

which can either be used as

very simply for hard-hitting

messages or in a more

detailed way for warmer

communications.

Expert

Hard-hitting

Human

Empathetic

Secondary colours

Se

co

nd

ary

Pri

ma

ryA

cce

nt

Fonts

Variable elements

Helvetica Neue:

Alte Haas Grotesk:

Illustration Solid characters

We’ve standardised

our stick men and

retained the house

icon, derived from

our logo, as this is a

recognisable element

of our identity

Evolving Shelter’s visual identity – to add to

elements which already working

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Increasing understanding

Telling the story of who we are:

Pre-starter induction for new starters

Standard comms – e.g.

- About Us website

- ‘What we do’ leaflet

- Advertising

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And since 2012…

PROMPTED AWARENESS has been consistently high

83%UNDERSTANDING has increased

ADVICEAwareness of our digital advice is at an all time high

– a third of people now associate Shelter with

providing personalised advice through helpline & F2F

Consistently close to CHARITY AVERAGE ON

TRUST

POTENTIAL TO SUPPORT has increased significantly

to20%up from 16% since July 2012

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Shelter’s visual identity. From this…

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To – Consistent but flexible from FR to hard hitting

campaigns

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Engaging with staff and volunteers

Regular stakeholder engagement – trustees, SMT etc.

Brand champions – project reps

Interactive Workshops e.g. > 80 TOV & >60 on

photography.

Training – developed pre-induction e-learning for new

starters.

Joint funding – Visual refresh was part funded by FR

and Scotland as well as Brand

Internal comms – Blogs, presentations, team meeting

presentations etc etc

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Top tips - It doesn’t have to be “big bang”.

1. Don’t throw the baby out of the bath water – everything doesn’t have to be new and shiny

2. Make it relevant - Put business at the centre of the re-brand and link to organisational goals

3. Prioritise – you can’t do everything. Focus on the big reach comms first e.g. FR, shops POS

4. Examples, examples, examples. Show not tell - Don’t assume that everyone has the same

understanding.

5. Get your house in order – e.g. we couldn’t launch photography until we had new library and

invested in new photography

6. Measures - Develop some measures which show progress and are relevant for brand but

equally importantly the organisation as a whole

7. Less is more – we found 13 “what we do brochures” and we had 3 standard descriptors –

short, medium and long. And we wondered why people were confused?

8. Guidelines are just the start…

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AND FINALLY…

Be patient and STICK WITH IT

Remember every little thing counts - so take

heart with small successes

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Appendix

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Brand tone of voice Principles

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How we dial our TOV up and down depending on type of

communication

Visit the CharityComms website to view

slides from our past events, see what

events we have coming up and to

check out what else we do.

www.charitycomms.org.uk

Brand Breakfast

Rebrand or refresh

Brand Breakfast

15 October 2014

London

#brandfast