RSPB: brand stretch work

Name: The SOFII Foundation
Price range: $

Exhibited by: SOFII
Added: September 03, 2009

Medium of Communication: Online, posters
Target Audience: Individuals
Type of Charity: Environmental/animals
Country of Origin: UK
Date of first appearance: 2007

SOFII’s view

Not all fundraisers may be familiar with the concept of ‘brand stretch’, the idea that you take the basic components of an organisation’s identity and personality as they are perceived by those closest to it, then you spread it to both existing and new audiences so that they come to see it as something more than they might otherwise have imagined.

This may seem self indulgent to some, but given how much it costs to create a new brand from scratch, if its basic components can be stretched this makes commercial sense to do, particularly if you can engage new audiences and get them to do new things, even to think differently. In this instance RSPB created some stunning images and messages around their core product and proposition. SOFII will leave it to its readers to judge how well, in this instance, the objective was achieved.

Simon Frank, Angela Coster and Selina Heathcote at Cascaid

Name of exhibitor

Simon Frank at Cascaid

To increase RSPB membership by widening public perception of what the brand is about.

Background

RSPB is already a well known British charity with more than one million members and a commanding dominance when it comes to anything whatsoever to do with wild birds. But the impact of their work is a lot wider than just the protection of birds, so in many ways RSPB’s is a very elastic brand, capable of appealing to just about everyone, not just dedicated birdwatchers.

Special characteristics

A wide range of media have been used.

Merits

Because the strikingly beautiful images and messages in this campaign are so powerfully presented as to show that a campaigning charity can produce communications that are as good as anyone’s.