Most model tasks that land in a studio often include a short geared in direction of the surface world. Designers are requested to influence shoppers, entice donors or reassure stakeholders, and the work is formed round how a model reveals up publicly.
Quite the opposite, the Woodland Belief’s newest mission flips that mannequin on its head. As a substitute of concentrating on most of the people, the charity requested design studio Cubic to focus fully by itself folks.
Whereas it is among the UK’s most recognised conservation charities, it had found that its personal model was being misunderstood by the individuals who use it day-after-day. Cubic’s job was to assist untangle inside confusion and rebuild confidence from the within out.
The pressure behind the work is “Us”, a heat and intentionally human marketing campaign that goals to reintroduce the model to its employees, encourage a way of shared duty and strengthen the hyperlink between inside tradition and public assist. Though the model has lengthy been trusted externally, Cubic’s audit revealed that, internally, it had grow to be troublesome to navigate, overly complicated, and, at occasions, handled as the only real area of the advertising staff. For a charity depending on recognition, consistency and donations, this created an apparent threat.
Cubic started with a strong model audit, talking to groups throughout the organisation to grasp the place the true ache factors sat. “We discovered that overcomplication and complexity had been inflicting confusion, and that folks had been craving extra context round what parts of the technique had been and the position they had been enjoying,” says managing director Oliver Bingham.
Clearly, the difficulty wasn’t visible id however comprehension. Workers merely did not really feel linked to the technique that sat beneath the emblem.
In the course of the analysis, it additionally turned clear that many noticed “model” as a division moderately than one thing they personally helped ship. That notion had led to gaps in how folks understood the hyperlink between recognition, assist and donations.
Oliver explains: “There was a big hole in understanding the way it knowledgeable and directed tradition, for instance, as a result of largely it was simply seen as ‘brand, color and photographs’.” The marketing campaign wanted to shift attitudes with out patronising anybody or overwhelming them with jargon.
To deal with this, Cubic labored intently with the Belief to rebuild the model’s technique construction, simplifying language and stripping away summary terminology. The staff wished each part to have an outlined position and a extra acquainted really feel, making a basis that might assist the artistic expression to comply with. As soon as the strategic reset was in place, all roads pointed in direction of a single concept of togetherness.
That concept turned “Us”, a reputation that signposts the behaviours and mindset wanted throughout the organisation. Cubic knew the marketing campaign needed to really feel human moderately than company, in order that they turned to illustrator and animator Con McHugh to assist carry the idea to life by work that might specific emotion with out slipping into cliché. His work lends the marketing campaign a way of heat and approachability, with easy strokes revealing concepts round group, development and focus in a means that feels quick and uncomplicated.
Oliver says illustration turned the pure reply as a result of it might “simplify issues in a means different types of expression cannot.” Animation adopted shortly. “You have a look at them as statics, and you may sense how every might be dropped at life,” he provides. The motion helped Cubic unpack summary themes and join them again to the Belief’s function: woodlands, folks and the planet.
To make sure the launch had weight, Cubic launched one thing employees might maintain of their arms. A bespoke ebook was created and despatched to each worker, supported by a movie voiced by Woodland Belief employees from throughout the UK. The selection to make use of a number of voices, accents and tones bolstered the marketing campaign’s core message that satisfaction and duty sit with everybody, not only one staff.
The movie makes use of a mixture of graphics, footage and animation to inform a transparent story about how model understanding impacts public belief and, in the end, donations. Each artistic resolution was chosen to encourage, not lecture. Small particulars, reminiscent of pairing woodland pictures with portraits of employees, subtly underscore that folks and place are inseparable within the Belief’s mission.
Inside campaigns are notoriously arduous to measure, however early indicators counsel the message is touchdown. “We have been informed extra folks have come ahead to ask questions,” Oliver explains, noting that this shift alone was one of many marketing campaign’s core aims. The work can also be getting used as an induction instrument for brand spanking new starters, making certain folks perceive the model from day one moderately than having to piece it collectively later.
An extended-term plan, constructed alongside Cubic, will preserve the marketing campaign alive. The concept is that “Us” turns into a continuing presence moderately than a one-off communications push. Oliver says, “It must be a faucet that does not get turned off.”
The Belief is already making ready follow-on activations designed to make the model really feel open, democratic and genuinely shared.
It might be an inside mission, however its influence reaches far past employees handbooks. Reframing the model as a collective dedication has helped reposition the Woodland Belief as an organisation the place each particular person understands their position in creating recognition, familiarity and assist. Within the charity sector, the place public belief is all the things, that shift might show extra beneficial than any exterior marketing campaign.
