Think Big. Act Wild. That’s our bold rallying call to everyone to engage with Rewilding Britain. Our call to landowners and farmers, campaigners and donors, communities who care and governments who make the laws. Because we’re facing a terrifying crisis – and rewilding encourages nature to lend a helping hand.
We want to see rewilding flourishing across Britain, re-connecting us with nature, rejuvenating communities and tackling the ecological and climate emergencies.
But we’re only in a position to do this because a few years ago we realised we needed to up our game – to be bolder, more inspiring, to be positive but to express urgency too. As an organisation we needed to live our values – inspiring, visionary, pioneering – and to tell our story with passion to a larger audience. So, we took a close look at ourselves, and our competitors, and committed to a rebrand. One that would enable us to do all the things we wanted while also giving us the ability for our brand to grow and evolve with us in future too. Here’s how we did it…
Spotting an opportunity to evolve
In 2020 our new strategy had defined our vision and we’d spent time refining our unique role – the place of a tiny, young charity – in making change happen. That role is to catalyse support for the rewilding projects springing up, to influence policies that support rewilding and to engage people around the country.
We were riding a wave of rapidly growing interest in rewilding, inspired to some extent by Isabella Tree’s best selling book, ‘Wilding’. But Rewilding Britain lacked stand out from traditional conservation groups and struggled to inspire people around this complex idea.
Having clarity on what needed to change
Our old brand was safe and anonymous, our tone of voice apologetic and our messaging full of jargon. We had no consistent brand presence beyond a logo. We needed a stronger, more confident voice, a more distinctive presence to build our visibility and reputation. We needed a brand to bring our bold vision, strategy and values to life. Having worked with Creative Director Owen Hughes on Macmillan Cancer Support’s sector changing rebrand in 2006, I knew who to turn to.
Building a strong, consistent brand experience
Owen created the elements of our brand identity to build a powerful presence. In addition to our logo, our headline font, gradient text, white boxes, icons and colour palette combine to ensure we’re distinctive and stand out. Remove the logo and you still know it’s us. We developed a tone of voice and messaging that’s underpinned by our vision and values – unafraid, active, authentic, for everyone and thought-provoking.
Making it easy for all teams
A brand toolkit for content designers ensured consistency and encouraged creativity. And we gave staff the tools to make it easy – an asset bank of images and icons, infographics, headed paper, email footers, and a template presentation. Bringing all of our staff and trustees with us on the journey turned them into ambassadors, ensuring consistency across all touchpoints, empowering them to create content and assets that were on brand but personal to all audiences.
Bringing the brand to life
We launched with a new website and our new Rewilding Network, a community for rewilders that now has over 800 members from community groups to large landowners covering over 170k hectares. With no budget for marketing or advertising, we focused on boosting our social and media coverage by speaking out in our new brave voice, backing up our arguments with new research and evidence and making clear policy demands.
We continued to punch above our weight, with our growing profile leading to growing donations and approaches from corporates and influencers – most recently Vivienne Westwood whose boldness fits well with our own values. We even partnered with garden designers Urquart and Hunt at Chelsea Flower Show to create A Rewilding Britain Landscape, winning best in show and bringing rewilding to mainstream attention. Coverage included a Telegraph cartoon, a mention on Have I Got News for You and an incredible 842 media items.
Keeping it fresh
However, we recognise that brands are dynamic and need to evolve. So, we’ve kept this front of mind.
For example, our brand toolkit didn’t guide all content. For example, we hadn’t defined our film, animation or music style and it turned out some elements, such as white boxes on social media, didn’t work well and have since had to change. Additionally, when we launched with our vision and mission, we had core copy and messaging, but we had no ‘elevator speech’ or audience message matrix based on insight and segmentation. As a small charity, we couldn’t do it all in one go – but we’re on it now!
Another area we’re also looking again at is our website. This is to make the user journey easier, to include stronger calls to action on every page, to embed new rich content to tell inspiring and personal network stories and proof of impact throughout the site. We’re exploring our tone of voice and visual style too to stay relevant and new.
In the words of American art director and graphic designer Paul Rand ‘design is the silent ambassador of your brand’- it is about much more than how you look or communicate. Your brand is your reputation, it’s how you’re experienced by others, it’s the stories you tell and what people say about you. Rewilding Britain’s rebrand was vital to bring our strategy to life and to ensure our voice is heard by those who can make rewilding happen. It’s helped mainstream our optimistic vision for nature and communities with the public and placed rewilding firmly on the agenda.
Hilary Cross spoke more about the rebrand at our Brand Breakfast – Aligning your brand strategy with your organisational strategy which is available now on demand.
For more great brand case studies check out the inspiration section of the Brand 360 Guide.
Banner Image: Todd Trapani on Unsplash