More than a rebrand: our commitment to creating a meaningful difference

This year marks our twenty-fifth birthday. Something Big was established in 1998, the same year as Google.

It’s hard to imagine a time before Google. Let me paint a picture of the communications landscape we joined: this was life pre-multi-channel marketing. The channel was print, from brochures and leaflets to direct marketing. Events only meant face-to-face, there was no other way.

Email and digital marketing had not really arrived, mainly because the internet had only just upgraded from dial up and most homes still used the same line as their telephone. While we did have the internet, it was a place you went, did your thing, and came out again. Many businesses didn’t have a website yet, and search engines like Google were only just emerging. You can Ask Jeeves if you want to know more about that (remember them?). Social media had not yet taken over our world.

For Something Big, life was pretty different. Unlike the superfast cloud storage and online proofing tools we have today, in our early years, we proofed by taking ‘wet’ proofs (colour matching printed proofs) to our clients, we drove discs to printers to transfer files, and we were paid by cheques that needed to be deposited at the branch counter. Mobile phones were radical just by virtue of being mobile, we had no idea they would become Smart and the centre of our world.

As well as the huge digital revolution we’ve also weathered multiple economic downturns, and global and local events from 9/11 and Covid to burglaries and Brexit. In the UK we’re on our seventh prime minister since our creation.

But critical to long-term business success is being proactive to the changing environment, not simply listening to customers, but intently watching the shifting world we all inhabit. You only need to look at businesses like Blockbusters and Kodak to see what happens when you ignore change. That’s why I’m proud of how we’ve adapted and evolved our business, and like a chameleon we’ve changed our brand a few times too.

Creating a meaningful difference

This brand change signifies something I’m proud of. It’s not about shifting to embrace yet another digital channel or the latest platform trend, it’s about stepping up to what our society and planet need of us. Not in a ‘let’s do a bit for community volunteering and plant the odd tree’ way, but in a big, robust, accountable, permanently committed, no turning back way.

There are greater things at stake right now, the global threat to humanity has never been more evident. Temperatures and sea levels are rising, while forests and species are decreasing.?The world needs governments, charities, and businesses to work together to play a proactive role in a race against time to protect our future.

This is a shift that I would love to see more businesses (all businesses) make. A shift from shareholder contribution to stakeholder contribution, where our stakeholders range from our teams and communities to our planet and biodiversity, and to our future generations.

Our brand change puts making a ‘meaningful difference’ to the heart of our business, exactly where it should be. To me, a ‘meaningful difference’ is more than good intentions, promises, commitments and signing petitions, which are all good, but don’t get the job done. It’s about taking proactive action and that’s what we’re doing. With the help of a series of team champions we’ve been building up our work around Diversity & Inclusion, Sustainability and Health & Wellbeing over the last year and now have real traction, with an ongoing list of meaningful actions taking shape. Keep an eye out on our upcoming impact report for more information on that.

It's true we probably could have maintained the look of our previous brand, but we felt it was so important to acknowledge the change required of us as a business, and the new chapter we’re entering.

Purposefully, we’ve kept the essence of our brand, but this time we’ve mixed our heritage pink with earthy colours, because we all now know the importance of balancing opportunity and growth with sustainability. As Mary Portas is famous for saying, ‘We might be forgiven for not knowing what consumerism would bring and that encouraging people to buy more, own more, have more, creating a throwaway society... but, we know now the cost to our future that has brought us’. There’s no excuse for any business to operate without considering sustainability, fairness and ethics at the forefront in 2023. There is much work to do, and we hope we’re inspiring a few more to join us in doing the work.?

Let's do business differently

If you haven’t already taken one of the first steps to doing business differently, then check out these great first steps:

• https://betterbusinessact.org/
• https://businessdeclares.com/
• https://www.bcorporation.net/
• https://employeeownership.co.uk/what-is-employee-ownership/

It’s time to go beyond business as usual, as we look to make a meaningful difference, for our clients, employees, communities, and for our world.