Launching Action for
Children
Clare Tickell
The journey from NCH to Action
for Children – and beyond...
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Strategic review and brand audit – launched December 2005
Decision to review our brand was taken October 2006
Decision to change our name was taken July 2007
Launch of new identity September 2008
First advertising campaign January 2009
Campaign and Appeal on neglect launched October 2009
Brand tracking continues
Work on better delivering our brand through our services has
just begun
Brand Health Indicators inform us of progress and help
decision-making
Strategic review and brand audit
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NCH was uncertain about its role as a voice for children
Brand audit was an integral part of Building on Success
strategic review
The review confirmed our vision, values, purpose and
operational mission
It resolved key questions over our strategic direction, including
the duty to speak out fearlessly for children
Brand audit found extremely low public awareness and a
brand that did not support fundraising
Our profile with commissioners and some other key
stakeholders was positive but everyone saw NCH as a poor
communicator
All stakeholders believed our brand failed to express our
values and strengths
Change of identity was part of
Change for Children
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The strategic review led to a new strategy launched
in 2007
A transformational change programme was required
to deliver it, and we introduced a programme
management approach
The Brand Programme was one of four major
change themes
The Brand Programme contained six projects:
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Promotion
Rollout (the most complex and risky)
Internal engagement (arguably the most important)
Web development
Tracking
Fundraising
The biggest challenges
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Being as scientific as possible about something that
is not a science
Integrating our brand values into our fundraising –
ultimately only solved by structural change
Setting realistic targets for awareness and
understanding the level of investment (financial and
time) required to improve it
Rolling out a new brand across an organisation
whose infrastructure was in need of modernisation
Achieving and retaining staff commitment (but we
moved from 75% against to 80% in favour)
Key success factors
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Appointing the right agency for us
Properly researched Stakeholder Matrix (with clarity on
existing and desired perceptions)
Making an evidence-based case for investment (there wasn’t a
recession then!) and being clear about the need to hold our
nerve
Developing our brand platform based on who we truly are,
which then demonstrated that we needed to change our name
– we didn’t impose a name change
Our internal engagement focused on understanding what
“brand” means and on our values – not just on “this is why we
are rebranding”
Trust between lead director and Chief Executive, and between
Chief Executive and trustees
Advertising
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We had never advertised before
All parts of the organisation were involved in developing the
advertising campaign
Transformation is fundamental to our brand – we show need
and solutions
The campaign uses children’s real stories, told by them
As at every stage, we did substantial research on our
advertising with our key stakeholder groups including service
users
We had to differentiate ourselves clearly from the market
leader in terms of awareness and voluntary income (NSPCC)
and from our nearest competitor (Barnardo’s)
Fundraising messages were a major challenge: integrating a
“sales” message into a pure, values-based brand
Brand tracking
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We have awareness targets and clear objectives for all
stakeholder groups
We need to be flexible and respond if our Brand Health
Indicators show up problems
We submit targets annually for agreement by trustees and
report annually against targets and on stakeholder perceptions
So far all targets have been met and we know we have:
– improved brand awareness among the public
– considerably enhanced policy-makers’ and media
perceptions that we are a voice for children
– retained staff buy-in to the new brand
– improved commissioners’ brand relationship
Next challenges
• Continuing to build awareness on a much
reduced spend
• Giving brand its proper place in our decisions
about service development and strategy
• Competitors are now responding to what we’ve
done – how do we respond to this?
• Continually improving integration especially
across campaigning and fundraising
• Development of new digital communications
strategy