The Children’s Society Rebrand

1

Hard Truths

Jayne Whitton

Marketing, communications and insight director

Jayne.Whitton@childrenssociety.org.uk

@jaynewhitton

Minaxi Henegan

Head of brand

Minaxi.Henegan@childrenssociety.org.uk

Why we rebranded

How we rebranded

The truth about ‘Hard Truths’

How we rolled it out

Results so far

Top tips

Hello

19 October

20152

Why we rebranded

19 October

20153

The previous brand was on a downwards trend.

With awareness levels and our brand drivers all falling substantially

year on year.

At the time the market was stagnant, cluttered and there was a lot

of duplication of activity.

There was no commonly held consensus on what The Children’s

Society did or what it stood for from an external perspective.

There was a significant disconnect between front line staff and HQ.

The result was that our brand was impacting on our ability to

influence the cost effectiveness of our fundraising and the success

of our commissioning.

How we

developed the

brand

10/19/2015 4

6 workshops with young people

Workshops with over 310 staff

45 one to one interviews

Interviews with our funders

Interviews with volunteers

Telephone interviews with

church supporters

Supporter survey

Identifying and surveying future

supporters

430+ personal contact points

Research &

Consultation

19 October

20155

Developing

the model

and creative

work

19 October

20156

Collated and analysed the research

data using it to work with others.

Worked with Task & Finish Group

of Trustees to develop Vision, Mission

and Values to help steer the brand

project

Worked with HR to develop

organisational behaviours to inform

the brand model

Developed the brand model

Developed creative expression of

the brand in collaboration with our

agency SomeOne developed 3

creative routes to help express our

new positioning

Tested the Vision, Mission, brand

model and creative work with:

Prospects, supporters, volunteers

and church audiences in Manchester

and London, front line change

champions, change champions, and

4 groups of young people

Refined the creative

Brand on a page

19 October

20157

Vision A country without disadvantaged children

Mission We fight for change, supporting disadvantaged children to have

better lives

Values Brave, Supportive, Trusted, Ambitious

Behaviours Leader/s, Authentic, Accountable, Collaborative, Committed,

Challenger/s, Enterprising

Brand Essence Hard Truths

A brand essence is the brand's promise expressed in the simplest, most single-minded terms

For example: Volvo = Safety Innocent Drinks = Pureness

TFL - Valuing time BBC worldwide = Stimulating

entertainment

The most powerful brand essences are rooted in a fundamental customer need

It is the unwavering start point

and corebelief of your brand

This is important to maintain a

consistent viewpoint and

singular opinion that every

stakeholder can believe in and

benchmark all work against

Strong sustainable brands

have brand essences

If Innocent did not believe and

stand behind the ideal of

‘pureness’, it would be a very

different brand

Our essence

19 October

20158

Why is brand important?

‘A brand becomes strongerwhen you narrow its focus’

Ries&Ries,The 22Immutable lawsof Branding

A model

19 October

20159

How we get to an

essence:

Our process is to find a

strategic sweet-spot between

three truths or insights from

human behaviour, your

market and your

product/service

Human TruthA truth or insight

about human nature

Brand essence

Market TruthA truth or insight about our market

Product Truth A truth or insight about our brand

Our essence

19 October

201510

Hard Truths

Market Product TruthToo many children

are let down by society

Human TruthIt’s much easier to walk by

Product Truth

Making small changes with

individuals to transform society

as a whole

Hard Truths

Behaviours

Leader/s

Essence

Values

Brand

Onion

Our old logo

We used to look like this…..

19 October

201512

Our logoWhat do we look like now?

19 October

201513

Website

Direct Mail

The brand applied

19 October

201514

Illustrative style

19 October

201515

Photography and six word stories

19 October

201516

The roll out so far…

19 October

201517

Our services for young people

Ashby-de- la -Zouch

Castle Bromwich, Solihull

19 October

201518

Our retail shops

The story so far…

Upward trend in our brand awareness. Continuous Yougov tracking

shows awareness at 52.8% (running from September 2014 to

September 2015)

Positive increases in ROI where the brand is applied effectively

Staff engagement levels are high with understanding and belief in our

vision, mission, values and behaviours polling in the high 70s or 80s

New volunteers highlighting our brand values as one of the things that

attracted them to the organisation

Still very much at the start of the journey, and we are continuing to

change as an organisation by asking ourselves the Hard Truths

By staying true to our values and our brand is inspiring a shift in our

marcomms approach which should in time, have a demonstrable

impact on the lives of the vulnerable young people we work with19 October

201519

Structured approach

Evidence based

(external & internal research)

Inform and educate

Collaborate

Beneficiary based

Top Tips…

19 October

201520

Consistency of staff

Work with a good agency

Make it fun!

Let others ‘own’ roll out in

their areas eg. Directorates

Stick with it and finish it!

Charity Registration No. 221124

Thank you&

Questions

Visit the CharityComms website to

view slides from past events, see what

events we have coming up and to

check out what else we do:

www.charitycomms.org.uk

Brand Breakfast

15 October 2015

London

#brandfast

Brand Breakfast

Rebrand or refresh