Inclusion and our brand
In 2024, the year of our 200th birthday, we unveiled our new brand. We're incredibly proud of it, and we worked hard to make sure our 'inclusion' journey was weaved into each stage along the way.
Discovery stage
We consulted staff at different levels across the RSPCA and asked them what they thought our mission was. Our brand agency visited centres and branches to become immersed in our world and understand why we exist. It came through loud and clear that there were varied views on how we help animals, so we knew what was needed was a galvanising purpose, a north star everyone can follow.
At the strategy stage we made sure our brand agency was focused on accessibility and connected the team with our internal specialists in the Digital Experience and User Experience teams. We also baked in inclusivity to our brand strategy, with one of our three guiding principles for the brand to be “open and welcoming”. This set our ambition to broaden the appeal of our new brand and engage a more diverse range of audiences. We involved a cross-section of staff to stress test our draft strategy, got their feedback and ensured the strategy worked across a wide range of areas.
Design stage
Using a creative testing tool called Loops, we tested concepts for various brand assets. This allowed us to get rich feedback from a nationally representative audience, as well as our own priority audiences. We looked at how our brand assets resonated with new younger audiences as well as our existing older audiences. We created a group of more than 100 brand champions from across the RSPCA and used their feedback to iterate and shape our work. We aimed for a reading age of 12 to make our words as easy to understand and as inclusive as possible. Our aim was to avoid jargon, and we continue to remove unnecessary acronyms from our brand storytelling so there are no barriers to understanding.
We developed a bespoke typeface called Wilberforce, which is clear and easy to read, and a new colour palette that our brand agency checked with internal specialists, looking at suitable colour contrasts, pairings and uses. This research resulted in clear rules regarding colour, design and words that came to life in our new brand guidance microsite ‘Our Brand’. It was created in-house, and our digital specialists helped us ensure all brand guidance is accessible. This guidance supports our goal of reaching Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Level AA, which is a conformance level that provides a strong level of accessibility, aiming to make content usable by a wide range of users, including those with disabilities. We also created a brand template tool to enable our branches to self-serve by designing their own assets. Importantly, this means users don’t have to be designers to produce assets that are on brand.
Delivery of the brand
Our staff, volunteers and branches were given an early look at the brand launch. We also engaged our brand champions early in the process and welcomed their feedback. After the external brand launch on 11 April 2024, we ran regular internal training sessions for staff on how to use our new brand. We held ‘Create a better world’ workshops twice a week to explain brand strategy and to get under the skin of our new look and feel, messaging and tone of voice. We ran tone of voice workshops for staff and developed a new e-learn module. Brand clinics and a dedicated brand email were established to make sure all staff had a chance to ask any brand-related questions, and give feedback on how the new brand was working in their areas, and flag risks or opportunities.
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