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there are lots of other changes to consider beneath the surface.
How to rebrand your charity
Electrical Safety First is dedicated to reducing deaths and injuries from electrical accidents. Formerly the Electrical Safety Council, we work to protect people from the risks of electricity by providing advice and information and campaigning for improvements. It’s a real priority for us to bring what might be perceived as dry health and safety messaging to life, and we do this through a range of dynamic, engaging campaigns that work to reach people and drive behavioural change.
Around eighteen months ago we started to carry out extensive research and consultation into our brand, looking at what the public, industry, government and our other stakeholders think and know about the charity. During the review it became clear that a lot of people were confused about what we do and our relationship with the electrical industry due to the way we’ve shifted our focus and remit over recent years. This highlighted a number of issues for us and after careful consideration we decided to change our name and adopt a fresh image.
Having recently launched our new brand, I’ve learnt some useful lessons along the way about how best to tackle the challenge and capitalise on the many opportunities a rebrand provides for a charity.
Be sure of the journey before you start
Set yourself clear goals and objectives and, above all, be sure of the rationale behind your rebrand. Devise a clear mission statement - is there a clear need to change the public perception of your organisation?
In our previous incarnation as the Electrical Safety Council, we found that a worrying number of people had misconceptions about what we do. The name had revealed itself to be misleading; we were often thought of as a trade association or quango, or even as part of the government machine.
It was vital to rectify this. We are a consumer campaigning charity, so we want to challenge government and stakeholders as well as working with them, in order to better protect and engage consumers. We knew a rebrand would enable us to communicate more effectively with our key audiences. The Electrical Safety Council brand had itself been a compromise, so it was important to be bold this time round. In order to drive real behaviour change more effectively, we needed to change ourselves.
Think beyond the name change
While the name change is the most tangible aspect of a rebrand, it goes without saying that there are lots of other changes to consider beneath the surface. In our case it was a single word that changed, but this symbolised a big attitudinal shift.
Embrace the rebrand as an opportunity to challenge and modernise outdated ways of doing things across the charity. Images and visuals might seem subordinate to the language you use to express what you do, but in fact the two are totally inseparable – particularly when you consider the importance of your website functioning as a first point of contact.
Our new name has been accompanied by a new visual identity and refreshed website, using clear, attractive and slightly retro images to appeal to a wide audience. The design is streamlined and clean and aims to be as accessible as possible but always informed by the high level of expertise held within the charity.
Get everyone involved
It’s essential to put the effort in internally to make sure that everyone is behind you and that they fully understand the direction of travel. Internally, there was a general sense of loyalty to the history of the Electrical Safety Council brand and the link it provided to the heritage of our work. We were keen not to ignore this loyalty to the past as we made plans for the future. While we wanted to become more relevant, we also ensured we involved a nod to our history.
Speaking to others who had already gone through the process really helped. We arranged for a CEO of a large charity to come and speak at a board meeting about why he had gone through a rebrand and what it had meant for his charity, which was instrumental to getting board approval for our plans.
Robust consumer testing is also invaluable - we tested out various different approaches and messages with focus groups as we went along. For example, we held workshops with homeowners and tenants based in Bristol and London to gauge their responses to proposed names and logos, as well as discussing which resources they looked to for electrical safety advice.
This gave us the confidence to develop the most popular ideas. We were bolstered by the knowledge that these ideas had shown themselves to possess real relevance to people’s everyday lives, rather than being too industry-centric or inward-looking.
Consider cost effectiveness
Have a clear plan about how you can be most cost effective. In our case, this involved bringing together internal resources and an external agency. There’s a real benefit to having a third party on board who see things from an outside perspective; they can challenge and test thinking. Where rebrands fail is when organisations just dump it on an agency and hope for the best. Instead, you need to work together closely to combine in-house expertise and fresh creativity.
Our agency, Forster Communications, examined the level of brand awareness amongst consumer audiences and helped us to assess and improve the way we presented ourselves. We collaborated to assess the whole spectrum of the way we communicate, from our website and newsletter to media articles and our social media presence. The agency then tested out and developed the new designs across these different channels.
Launch it properly
There’s very little point in rebranding if no one’s actually aware you’ve done it. Consider how best to raise awareness and remember to focus on the relevance driving the rebrand. We harnessed several diverse channels - such as trade articles, stakeholder newsletters and our own magazine - to get the message across to electricians and other key stakeholders. Another key part of the process was to reach out to consumers.
We revived the 1970s/80s public information film Charley Says to raise awareness of electrical safety in the home. As the original films were voiced by comedian Kenny Everett, we decided to search for an appropriate successor and secured David Walliams, a hugely popular household name. Refreshing a much loved heritage brand was the perfect vehicle for us to launch our own. The film was covered in over 200 print, broadcast and online outlets, and really engaged people through social media, with more than 75,000 views, 4,300 likes and 5,500 shares on Facebook.
Take stock of what’s been achieved
Once the launch is over and everything’s in place it’s easy to fall into the trap of forgetting to track progress. Look back at the start of the process and celebrate achievements to keep up the good work and plan how to keep driving development. We’ve engaged a wider group of stakeholders which we previously had little or no traction with: we now have great and growing relationships with manufacturers, the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills, and other key organisations like Shelter.
We’ve already been called upon to coordinate the launch of the new mark for competent electricians, a scheme that has a great relevance for consumers and stakeholders alike. We know that the rebrand has played a huge part in these new developments.
