Paul Wood, Creative Director, ICE
Branding and design can do so much more than help raise awareness of an issue. It has the power to engage and empower people to change for the better, supporting sustainable behaviour change on a range of key social issues.
Whether it’s public health, community safety or environmental responsibility, effective design has been integral to so many of the successful social change projects our team has worked on. So we’ve put together our quick guide to help make your design communications work harder to drive meaningful interactions and achieve your strategic objectives.
Download a pdf version of this blog here.
1. Get ‘people-centred’: We’ve harnessed the principle of ‘co-creation’ to involve target groups much more closely in the design process. Co-creation sessions with your audiences will enable them to test ideas and you to challenge your assumptions. That results in people–
centred design solutions which truly resonate with the groups you need to reach.
2. Draw on behaviour change techniques: As part of a people-centred approach, it’s essential to appeal to people’s individual desires, motivations and aspirations. So drawing on behaviour change tools and techniques will help you develop more targeted, agile communications – all carefully tuned to target your audiences’ social, political and emotional contexts.
3. Value ‘the big idea’: Great ideas lie at the heart of great branding, so for us, everything must contain an idea – a big idea. Harness the insight you’ve collected to develop that all important idea and bring your communications together in an engaging and consistent way. It will be something that makes people think, makes them smile, or even reshapes their perceptions of the world.
4. Harness ‘transmedia’ storytelling: Great branding needs to be adaptable. Telling your story across multiple platforms and formats will broaden engagement and maximise the value and longevity of your budget and resources. Latest ‘transmedia’ techniques will enable you to make the most of current digital technologies to deliver integrated content which come to life in new and innovative ways.
5. Keep innovating: Continually refining and developing your messaging, channels and imagery will keep your communications agile. That way you can constantly evolve your branding and design – and drive sustainable brand loyalty.
Get in touch and we’ll tell you more about how to create an engaging, coherent and adaptable brand.
Contact me Paul Wood, Creative Director, paul.wood@icecreates.com / 0845 5193 423.
ICE 
3 Comments
I think many people that work for a social issue forget their cause needs to be branded. The tips that you’ve provided for these types of groups are crucial in getting their causes out there. I really like your fourth point and think many of these organizations overlook it. Expressing your brand across different media not only lets their brand and cause be known but also reaches many different types of people. Social media sites, such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, are great resources for social groups to use to get their brand out to the public, but are very underutilized. Great post, and I’ll be sure to share it!
Hi Amanda, really pleased you enjoyed our branding post and that you found our tips useful.
We’re deeply passionate about using branding and design to drive behaviour change for social good.
I’ve checked your blog out and you have some really good pieces on there so keep up the good work. Good luck with your studies and keep checking back here for more of our posts!
Thanks
Paul
Thank you Paul!