Helping ZSL step out of the shadows to take its rightful place on the world stage.

Insight
Research showed that as the organisation struggled to rebalance the brand, and support all areas of activity, they had fallen foul of brand soup, creating separate competing brands for every activity and initiative. A natural reaction to this would have been to re-centralise.

“As an organisation we are trying to preserve difference and diversity on a global scale, let’s do it internally too. Let’s not suppress difference, let’s value it.”

This quote drawn from an early staff engagement session proved to be a turning point for the project. It showed that a simple centralisation of the brand wouldn’t reflect the team’s needs, we had to define a brand purpose capable of providing a unifying anchor to the organisation, while providing different teams the freedom and tools to communicate in the right way for them and their audience without breaking the link to that anchor.

Ideas
“What do you mean ‘you can’t see yourself in this’? You’re a conservationist just the same as me, everything you do supports conservation.”

This dramatic exchange proved a defining moment within a cross team co-creation workshop and a breakthrough in finding the central idea that could hold the organisation together.

As the original science-led conservation organisation ZSL had a unique perspective on both what conservation means and what it should deliver. To ZSL conservation isn’t a backward looking approach, preserving the world in aspic as it once was. But instead, a powerful movement driving forward to find ways to help us live better with wildlife and recover the wonder and diversity of nature.

That idea of conservation as a movement allowed the whole organisation to see that no matter what their individual role, from keeper to scientist, campaigner to marketeer, all could play their part in conservation as an enabler, driving recovery, together.

The more we drew out this uniqueness in ZSL’s attitude and approach the more it became clear that to successfully shift perceptions of the brand, the team would need a new shared way to communicate, using emotive language and compelling storytelling. A new recovery focused narrative and flexible messaging platform empowers everyone at ZSL to speak with one voice.

Impact
With a clearer sense of what the brand stood for, ZSL needed an identity equally as unifying. We reconnected the organisation with its proud, shared heritage, using elements from past identities but injecting them with fresh energy and meaning to create a new logo as iconic as ZSL’s past and as bold as their future ambitions.

This new logo takes you through the sky, down past the canopy, across the ground and into the ocean. Every element of the ecosystem coming together, just as ZSL does, to drive forward on a journey of recovery.

The new ZSL identity was just the start, London Zoo, Whipsnade Zoo, the Institute of Zoology, conservation programmes, high-level partnerships and publications all needed fully updating to work within the new brand ecosystem.

A set destination, a shared vehicle, but different ways to get there – brand narrative, graphic system, colour palette and tone of voice all work to this principle. One font that can be soft and inviting, or precise and hard hitting; a personality full of warmth, care and passion but sometimes more full of one than another. And a hierarchy that sets out ZSL’s role clearly across every touchpoint, building stronger relationships between every facet of the brand.

Together these elements deliver a brand with proven impact. Initial testing shows audiences feel the brand is three times as impactful as the sector average. Impact that will be vital as the organisation looks to help save the natural world we love and depend upon.