Community Engagement in the 21st Century

PART I

from this…

…to this

Most of us think a brand is…

And we often think logos are brands…

But your brand is more than thisGood branding tell people what your organisation stands for.

A brand is your story and it is made up of a number of elements.

1. GraphicsSymbols, logos and colours are important. They aid recognition.2. Personality + Values = ATTITUDEHuman like characteristics. The voice of your organisation. How you want to be perceived. Fun, serious, open, innovative, modern, reliable. The more well developed, defined and executed these characteristics are the easier it is for people to understand your story. 3. ImplementationYour brand needs to be implemented via coherent and consistent use of the logo, tag line, use of language in advertising and other communication tools, image choices, and interactions with members or donors. For branding to have its maximum effect, all members must understand and engage in your brand to ensure the message is clear and consistent.

.

July 2012

The Not-So-Good News

• The Greens are a bit on the nose in Byron Shire and are perceived as having been in power for a long time

• A popular well known leader, Jan Barham, is going and some people voted for Jan personally rather the Greens. It is likely some of these votes will be lost.

• There is a sense that there will be nationwide swing against the Greens particularly in electorates like Byron Shire and Marrickville.

• While Simon has been a councillor for four years and is a very active Greens campaigner the candidates with the exception of Duncan Dey and Jim Beatson are light on political campaigning experience.

The Brief

• Cut through the negative perceptions with a constructive campaign• Byron Shire is a great place to live• Byron Shire is made up of diverse communities. People feel great

attachment to the places they live and the tribes they belong to.• The Greens have contributed to – in fact have driven – the protection of

the area from over-development.• The Greens are inclusive but are sometimes perceived as old fashioned

and anti-business.

The Assets

• The Greens Brand – values, attitude, identity• The Greens Leaders – Bob Brown, Jan Barham, Simon Richardson• The Greens Candidates• The Greens Byron Shire story• The then online presence – a website which was co-branded Byron and

Ballina Greens – is unwieldy in a number of ways, needs a webmaster to update it, has a problematic GUI and the perception is that it is old fashioned.

• Volunteers• The new frontier for local Greens social media as a component of

engagement

How do we communicate modern, responsive, inclusive and innovative

Newcastle

Northern Rivers

Marrickville

Tweed

Central Coast

Byron

You all do it differently

I did a lot of searching, rang NSW head office and all I could locate in terms of a reference was 2009 Style Guide.

So we did our best with the brief and the style guide knowing that local Greens groups are fairly free to interpret and develop their brand and communications as they see fit.

Lots of iterationsbut one main idea

Which developed over time

But…

So we accommodated as much as we could and concentrated on online