Crafting Deep and Meaningful Brand Extensions

Ocean Conservation Trust

50.3667° N, 4.1310° W

Background

We’ve worked with the inspirational charity, the Ocean Conservation Trust (OCT), since 2019.

Our work started with supporting the team in growing income for their hub of ocean excellence at the National Marine Aquarium. Through a digital marketing strategy and ongoing advertising, we’ve helped them to increase visitors to their aquarium and grow revenue to support their mission.

After building a long-term collaboration and relationship, we were tasked with firming up their bright and optimistic brand.

The brief

For over twenty-five years, the Ocean Conservation Trust has been engaging audiences and having a positive impact on our seas. In the past decade, they’ve been working on innovative conservation projects, including protecting and restoring seagrass beds around the UK. Now 25 years after their inception and four years on from their new charity name, their brand is looking to reach new audiences and travel far and wide. Therefore the time came to develop their brand to ensure it can be used to increase awareness and also leverage funds to support their mission.

The OCT has a clever logo and an attractive colour pallet, so the job for us at Navigate was to convert these into a clear operational communications structure with a brand toolkit of marketing assets to breathe life into their vivid pink icon.

The team knew exactly what their brand wasn’t, but they needed direction on how to use their style in different levels of communication.

Thinking

After years of working alongside the OCT’s leadership team, we built out the brief and project in a series of interviews with key stakeholders.

Through these interviews, we understood that to take their brand to the next level in order to truly have a positive impact on our planet, we had to support them in redefining their story and pin down a distinct tone of voice, vision, and structure moving forward.

So here's where our thinking took us:

// One

Firstly, we looked to evolve their positioning, ensuring a clear communication style for their predefined audiences. Exploring the impact the charity wants to have over the next decade through its detailed conservation strategy, we built out the core audience communication styles.

// Two

Developing the core brand building blocks was the next stage of the process. Yes, their logo was unique with an interesting story, but how did it fit in the broader context of their brand? We extended their visual colour palette, defined their typefaces and crafted an extensive range of textures and graphic elements to ensure they had an arsenal of brand tools.

// Three

Next, we took all of those assets and created a framework of templates to showcase the visual design elements of each. Presentations, adverts, business cards, social graphics, you name it, we created a template so the team had the confidence to move forward and showcase their brand clearly and consistently.

// Outcome

The brand guidelines document acts as an internal brand bible for the team to ensure everyone is on the same page moving forward. By firming up the Ocean Conservation Trust’s brand in a clear and valuable guideline document, the team can confidently move forward.

“With these wonderful extended brand guidelines in place, our teams, partners and suppliers now have even more tools at their disposal to not only feel part of the story, but to help tell our story. The Navigate team worked really hard to get under the skin of the OCT, giving us a guide not just for now, but one that feels future proofed for this next chapter of our journey.”

Phillipa Revest, Head of Marketing and Communications

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For over 18 years we've been trusted by some of the world's leading destinations, attractions and conservation brands. If you’re looking for a specialist marketing consultancy to help get you the results you need, then get in touch.