Alzheimer’s Society has rebranded in order to cut through in a “bolder way” and move away from its “passive and cold” former image.
Alongside the more colourful new brand, the charity is also unveiling a new communications strategy, which looks to be “bold, credible and optimistic”.
Its new strapline ‘United Against Dementia’ aims to reflect the brand’s desire to become a “rallying point” for the dementia movement. It chose to retain its existing name due its heritage and brand equity.
The brand has also redesigned its website to make donating easier and to ensure it is “dementia-friendly”. It also plans to be more responsive to users’ needs and look at how it can personalise the online experience for visitors.
Research conducted in partnership with creative agency Heavenly showed that Alzheimer’s Society’s previous brand, although respected, was considered passive, clinical and cold. It had little stand out and wasn’t engaging enough people, which is why an overhaul was needed.
The charity says dementia is the biggest health and social care challenge faced by society. Deaths from dementia are rising year on year and more than 1 million people will have dementia by 2021. As a result, Alzheimer’s Society wants everyone to rise to the challenge and act now.
“Semi-prompted awareness is quite low at around 10% and has been for a long time. Given the size of the issue, we felt not enough people knew about the disease. We needed something that enabled us to be more visible,” Vivienne Francis, director of marketing and external affairs at Alzheimer’s Society, tells Marketing Week.
Challenging perceptions of dementia
Besides making sure that everyone affected can get the support they need, the brand also wants to invest more heavily in research. Through the rebrand, Francis hopes the charity can become “the rallying point for the dementia movement” and reach more people.
“People can sometimes view the disease as something for older people. One of the challenges will be to make sure we are changing perceptions of dementia and also making sure we cut through,” she adds.
“There haven’t been any new dementia treatments for the past 10 years, so it’s understandable that there’s hopelessness or apathy. We want to cut through in a bolder way.”
Alzheimer’s Society is set to launch a multi-channel campaign in April together with McCann London. Francis says it plans to use its survey results of people affected by dementia to help “build the dialogue” around dementia.
She concludes: “To help us build that dialogue we will be ramping up our digital activity and making sure we are using the data we have to sustain this dialogue with people, as dementia is everybody’s problem.”
The post Alzheimer’s Society rebrands to ensure disease is seen ‘as everyone’s problem’ appeared first on Marketing Week.
Source: Marketing Week
Alzheimer’s Society rebrands to ensure disease is seen ‘as everyone’s problem’