Charity Brand and Creative Conference

Brand can boost the impact a charity has in every area of work. A cohesive, distinct and memorable brand identity can propel you towards your goals and enhance all of your messaging, projects and campaigns. But it can be difficult to make the case for investment and resources – especially during a cost-of-living crisis and particularly if you’re from a smaller charity with limited budgets. In this session, Emma demonstrates how good branding can improve your charity’s performance in profound, tangible and measurable ways. Brimming with take-home nuggets, you’ll discover how to explain the value of brand in simple language and get buy-in from all areas and levels of your charity. 

Evidence and research should always underpin any big brand decision. Following a thorough research process, evidence suggested that Children with Cancer UK needed a new visual identity and greater clarity of positioning to strengthen its place in the market. It also uncovered strong opinions on which direction the brand should move towards and some hard-hitting truths about its engagement. In this talk, Hannah shares the inside story of the different research techniques that Children with Cancer UK used to generate insight and inform brand decisions. She will share learnings and practical tips to help you kickstart work in this area.

What can charities learn about branding and reinvention from the late cultural icon, David Bowie? In this fun and practical session, Lark shares what you need to consider before taking the leap into your branding project. From a whistlestop tour of some of the dos and definitely-don’ts of rebranding (remember when Kellogg’s changed the name of Coco Pops to Choco Krispies?) we then journey through case studies from some of the nation’s most successful charities – all via the many guises of David Bowie.

The foundations of a strong brand are a clear explanation of who you are and what you stand for. Why you exist, what you deliver and how you do it. Whilst charities have traditionally used vision, mission and values, future brand leaders are now taught purpose, proposition and personality. Together they position your brand in people’s hearts and minds, to move them to action, building your profile and reputation. Dan busts the jargon around brand positioning and shares recent project examples of how he has crafted distinctive brand positioning strategies.

From rooting your brand in a BIG idea to working creatively within parameters, there’s a huge amount to consider when developing a visual identity. Creative Concern explores how all charities – no matter their size or budget – can develop and embed a great visual identity as part of their brand.

Liz and Faith share how they approach the development of a visual brand and how the process can be made truly inclusive and fun. Sharing practical techniques that you can use in your own teams to build better creative briefs for your designers, you’ll learn how you can work within parameters and still achieve a strong, creative result. They’ll also share how to keep in mind the practical rollout of your visual identity, making sure that it has a long and effective life once it’s left your designers’ studio.

The result of Brand Strategy and Creative working together in harmony is a stronger, more focused brand. But how does this look in practice? Using examples from recent projects, Stuart explains how brand strategy acts as a guiding compass to help creative development stay on track. The elements that make up the brand expression, such as the words, colours, typefaces, graphic devices, photography and illustrations, are all born from the brand positioning strategy. Stuart shares his top tips for ensuring the creative output (both written and visual) of a rebrand doesn’t stray from your strategic positioning.

How do you prove that your branding work was worth the investment? How can you evidence the impact of branding work on your charity’s bottom line? In this session, we discuss how to measure brand equity and how to demonstrate the impact of investment using a variety of different techniques for different budgets.

Do you have a burning question that we haven’t covered during the day? If so,  our expert panellists will try to cover it! Or maybe you’ll hear answers to the questions you never knew you had! A great way to round off the day.

Back in 2019, Age International, a small charity, working in international development, was struggling to get cut through in a noisy and complex space. The charity embarked on a brand refresh project, designed to boost its positive tone, and celebrate the older people it supports. Offering her top tips and take-aways, Vishnee will share how they completed the brand refresh on a tight budget, including how they made the most of their budget with an agency and what can be done in-house. She will also share the journey and how they inspired their staff to get involved in the brand roll-out.

We know that structural and systemic racism exists across society and in the UK, and that we as the charity sector are not separate from or immune to this. To create change, and truly oppose and challenge these systems of oppression and discrimination, we all need to take an active approach to anti-racism and equity. And that includes being anti-racist in our communications.

In this session, Alex shares the journey Plan International UK are taking to ensure anti-racism is at the heart of their brand. Alex will talk through how their anti-racism communication principles inform and drive how they communicate as an organisation. She will talk through their journey to develop the principles, imbed them across the organisation and what they are learning along the way.

The Wellcome Trust has developed their inclusive communications programme over the last two and a half years. In this short presentation, they will share their top learnings and tools to help you start making your brand more equitable today.

Today’s climate emergency and ecological collapse is the biggest crisis of our time. In 2019 Rewilding Britain – a small, visionary charity – was riding the growing wave of public interest in rewilding but lacked stand out from traditional conservation groups. People were confused about rewilding and Rewilding Britain’s unique contribution. In 2020 Rewilding Britain clarified its strategy and vision, and created a bold and inspirational new brand to grab the lead and convince people to ‘Think Big, Act Wild’. Hilary shares how she brought her experience of building Macmillan’s brand to a brave charity with a tiny budget – and how both rebrands succeeded because they drove strategy and inspired the whole organisation.

Brand guidelines are an essential part of your brand toolkit, but colleagues can often see them as an obstacle rather than an asset. In this session, Helen shares top tips for setting and embedding brand guidelines, along with some useful tools to demonstrate value and encourage colleagues to embrace them.