Charity rebrands that worked. Part one.

Following RSPCA’s first rebrand in 50 years, The Telegraph published an article on controversial charity rebrands and why they backfired. The mainstream conservative press can be hostile to charity branding and like to equate the investment to a name and logo. I want to help readdress the balance with ten positive brand stories in this blog series. In part one, we'll look at Blood Cancer UK, UNICEF and Scope. Thank you to Helen de Soyza and Rebecca Walton for your contributions.

Blood Cancer UK

Radda and Pentagram rebranded Blood Cancer UK in 2020, formerly known as Bloodwise.

At the time, Chief Executive Gemma Peters (now at Macmillan Cancer Support) published a very honest blog on the decision to rebrand again. When she first joined the charity, she was adamant they weren’t going to change name, but came to realise that not doing so “would have been like driving with the handbrake on.”

At the time of the rebrand, awareness of Bloodwise amongst the general public was 7.5%. Four years later, public awareness of Blood Cancer UK was 35% and awareness amongst people affected by blood cancer was 48.5%. ?

The rebrand brought the clarity needed to reach and engage more people affected by blood cancer. The number of people the charity is in touch with has increased by 400% and fundraising income has grown significantly. It’s not just stats that tell the story. Since the rebrand, the charity has had significantly greater success in securing corporate partnerships.

Helen de Soyza, Deputy Director of Communications, said: “A lot of articles focus on the cost of rebrands, but in some cases the question has to be whether you can afford not to? In fact, you can spend much more resource trying to embed a problematic brand than a clearly defined and tested one.”

UNICEF

UNICEF was rebranded in 2014 by Johnson Banks with Rebecca Walton at the helm.

UNICEF was a well-known brand, but most people didn’t know what they do. UNICEF is in fact the world’s largest children’s organisation, working to ensure children are fed, vaccinated, educated and protected. With children around the world under threat the charity needed to clarify its mission to raise more funds.

The charity identified a single-minded way to sum up why it exists:?For every child in danger. This key phrase enabled them to get across the global impact of their work and to make their focus on children clear. It was also a strong and urgent call to action.

The core idea was supported by new messaging with a powerful emotional appeal, outlining the big dangers that children face, and the ways in which UNICEF and its supporters can keep them safe. The visual brand also evolved to be more distinctive and recognisable.

To assess the immediate impact of the new brand, UNICEF conducted a test where a fundraising mailer was rebranded, and results were compared to the previous version. The rebranded one raised 23% more funds. The brand was rolled-out with the charity’s winter fundraising appeal, which proved to be its most successful ever. The most significant results from investing in brand usually show up over the longer term, and UNICEF’s support continued to climb, with a 65% increase in funds raised over 5 years.

Rebecca Walton, former Head of Brand and Marketing, said “The new brand worked so much harder to support our fundraising and campaigning, and our investment was returned many times over. An effective re-brand isn’t just skin deep. It helps people internally align around a shared understanding of who you are, and externally it communicates a clear message about what you stand for.”

Scope?

I sense change in the winds, so wanted to get this one in here now.

Scope won the Third Sector Award for brand in 2019. It was the most improved brand in last year’s Charity Brand Index and has ramped up charitable spending by more than one-third in a year. Whilst Scope had high awareness, driven by its retail presence, it suffered from a lack of understanding. People struggled to place its role in modern day life and often only associated it with helping children with cerebral palsy.

There are in fact 14 million disabled people in the UK. That’s one in five of us. Scope exists to achieve everyday equality for them all.

Using social discourse, brand archetypes and challenger brand narratives, I identified an opportunity to disrupt the disability charity sector with a new brand strategy focussed on achieving social change. The brand idea of Disability Gamechangers was born. An idea which has entered popular culture by hitting the BBC homepage.

Whilst other social movements had clear language such as racial discrimination, LGBT rights, gender parity and marriage equality, disability was missing a clear definition as a cause. This insight led to the brand idea of ‘Disability Equality’, which in turn inspired the creative execution and the iconic purple equality sign. The proud symbol of a dynamic new social movement.

The visual identity was created by The Team in a collaborative Design Sprint between the brand agency and in-house design team, championing accessible design. Setting out to prove that accessible design can still be packed full of personality.

Scope has risen up the Charity Brand Index from 90 in 2018 to 60 in 2023. The engagement metrics from the brand project are outstanding; 93% of people believed the brand makes you realize disabled people face unequal challenges; 84% believed Scope is changing attitudes to disability in society.

The brand project coincided with a new organisation strategy which divested services to become a smaller charity focussed on social change, so income initially went down. It has since climbed, however, the brand has not been activated with a sustained plan for fundraising growth in the same way as UNICEF above.

The success of the repositioning is down to how the brand and organisation strategy worked together, as well the synergy between brand strategy and creative solution.

Join me on my charity brand crusade. To be continued...