Hospiscare

Hospiscare
Brand Development and Brand Management

We’ve asked Glynis Atherton, Chief Executive of Hospiscare and Amy Kilburn, Communications Officer, to talk about what it is like working with Alder and Alder.

Who is Hospiscare?
Hospiscare (www.hospiscare.co.uk) is based in Exeter and gives high-quality care and dedicated support to people who are terminally ill, across Exeter, mid and east Devon. They do this for free, and in 2012 they celebrate their 30th anniversary. But to do this Hospiscare need raise nearly £5m each year to care for over 2,000 patients and their families. At their hospice in Exeter they provide 24-hour nursing care, supported by Hospiscare doctors and consultants. They also run three day centres and have a team of specialist nurses, who visit patients at home. To deliver this level of care they have about 200 members of staff and over 1,000 active volunteers. For an organisation like Hospiscare good communication is really important, so that they can provide their care and support as effectively and efficiently as possible.

 

Why choose Alder and Alder?
In 2007 we were invited to go and meet Glynis and Amy at Hospiscare, to talk about their brand development. ‘You understood the bigger picture,’ says Amy. ‘You understood what we wanted – that we didn’t want to change the logo – and didn’t try and sell us anything we didn’t need. You saw beyond the logo, to the brand as a whole. One concern at the outset was that you were too small,’ Amy continues, ‘but there’s been no downside. The benefit is we don’t get pushed to junior staff. We work with you (Jonathan). I’d changed design agency every year for three years until we found you.’

 

What did you need?
“We had carried out some market research,” says Amy, “to find out what people knew about us. We found out that the logo was recognised, but people didn’t know we were a local charity. They thought we were the local branch of a national charity. And that was really important because we were founded by the local community, for the local community. So if that wasn’t understood, that was a problem.”

Amy continues, “We also found the logo was used inconsistently in the material we produced. The logo itself was OK. We didn’t want to change it, for various reasons, but the identity had grown without any control. As a result there was no guidance on how to use it for people that needed to produce promotional material. And there was a quality issue too. The quality of a lot of the material that was produced didn’t match the quality of the care we provide, so there was an inconsistent message. There were also wider issues around our message that needed to be addressed. We needed to manage the perception that Hospiscare is somewhere you go to die. We needed to educate our audience about what we do.”

“But we had the resources to do a lot of this ourselves,” says Amy. “My role as Communications Officer is to make this stuff happen, and there are lots of volunteers who are willing to help. But as an organisation we recognised we didn’t have the skills or experience needed to start the process. We knew we needed to develop our brand, but we didn’t know where to start. That was why we needed to work with you.” So our brief was clear: Create a consistent identity for Hospiscare, that would enable them to communicate clearly to their audience.

 

What did we do?
Our first step was to develop the existing Hospiscare visual identity, without changing the logo. We took their logo and two corporate colours; orange and blue, and filled in the missing pieces. A design style for all of the printed material was developed, with examples to show how it would work. The design style was built around a broadened the colour palette, a consistent typeface and a better source of images. The next step was to create a set of guidelines that explained clearly and simply how to use the visual identity, so that anyone who needed to produce promotional material knew exactly what they needed to do. With the guidelines in place the staff and volunteers at Hospiscare had the tools and framework they needed to produce high quality communication material, that looked consistent. The Hospiscare visual identity is applied to their printed material, website, vehicles, signage… anything they use to communicate.

So what do we do now? Well, we’ve been able to continue to support Hospiscare when they need extra help, or some specialist expertise. We have designed and produced the Annual Review since 2007 and in 2011 we worked on the rebranding of the Hospiscare Lottery.

 

Does it work?
“Working with you has given us a strong visual identity for our brand,” says Glynis, the Chief Executive. “It has enabled us to present a coherent and consistent visual identity in all our publications and promotional materials that has enhanced the visibility of the charity and our impact in the local community.”

Amy continues, “It work across more than we ever envisaged; things outside the brief. Things we didn’t ask for. Because you looked at the brand as a whole. We’ve been able to adapt it to our specific needs,’ says Amy. ‘Things like our Walks – our sub-brands – the colour palette helps us to differentiate them. We didn’t know we’d need that in 2007, when we wrote the brief. And it’s helped us expand our fundraising. It helped us move into corporate fundraising, because it gave us confidence. We match their expectations. We don’t feel like a small charity going begging.’

There’s a practical benefit too, Amy stresses. ‘Having the guidelines and a set style saves time internally. It takes the pressure off me’. And the benefit of our on-going relationship? ‘You keep pushing the creativity of the brand through the annual review,’ says Amy, ‘and producing that document is easy and quicker now, because you’ve done it before and you understand how we work.’

(c) Alder and Alder 2012

Website Development by Gleave Media