Transforming a destination brand into a pioneer of the natural and cultural landscape

At the outset of the project our initial research highlighted several areas where the brand was not only holding back the organisation, including; Underpowered charitable messaging, leading to people thinking that the organisation was part of the council.

A confused brand architecture which meant other audiences confused the organisation with a local academic trust.

Plans for expansion which meant the geographic connection to the river Nene was becoming less and less relevant.

A need to future-proof against their new strategy, which would see them offer more services to more people in more places. While struggling to maintain a coherent offer and clear value proposition for their existing destinations in the face of this rapid expansion.

To truly succeed, the brand would require more ambition. We had to address these fundamental problems at the heart of the brand by transforming the ambitions for it. Rather than looking to build awareness we needed to build a community with the passion and power to celebrate, engage, develop and grow the parks and environment. And rather than defining the location of the brand we needed to go beyond geography to uncover and empower the spirit of place and the people who make it.

Only then could we create the aspirational, accessible and active brand which would enable the organisation to deliver against it’s charitable objectives.

We tested this hypothesis through an in-depth consultation taking in over one hundred conversations across local and national stakeholders and funders as well as on site sessions with staff, volunteers and the public, proving that if we could open up the organisation through a more transparent brand and help people see what was inside, they would like what they found.

We also proved that recent attempts to address low awareness and create a more universal offer through homogenisation had backfired, and true universality could only be reached through embracing the diversity of the brand,parks and people they support.

By using this insight as a mirror, allowing the organisation to honestly look at themselves for the first time, we enabled them to see the bigger picture hidden within their existing strategy so that;

A body responsible for the long-term custody and day-to-day management of parks, becomes a pioneering charity redefining the role our natural and cultural landscape play in life.

Simply providing facilities becomes shaping happy, healthy spaces to meet, explore, and grow. And their key goal of quality of life becomes a more exciting proposition of loving life together.

This transformation only became possible by unlocking the golden thread that would link all future activity together. The shared beliefs that had brought the team together would also hold the future brand together.

We helped the team to agree that the one idea they all shared, the reason they do what they do was because ‘connected communities, who are more confident in who they are and enjoy their environment together will shape and share a brighter future’.

With a clearer picture of who the organisation is and what it wants to achieve, we created a brand architecture and naming system to better support its needs, elevating the Trust to become a more independent entity and allowing for a broader set of services and offers to sit underneath it.

A new, more powerful visual language has the flexibility to be able to meet the needs of this new architecture while creating a visual language more rooted in the vernacular of an innovative NGO than a regional park.

A strategic platform that enables the charity to grow, a visual identity that allows it to provide essential services while also appealing to visitors and tourists alike, a story that inspires and a brand with ambitions that match the organisations, together these elements will support Nene Park trust as it goes on to transform our natural and cultural landscape.