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Genre Of Impact Brand Development & Business Design
Impact-centred thinking, business design and purpose-led creativity are powerful tools of change for the not-for-profit sector and foundations. The impact of solid brand design, nimble technology, storytelling, content, marketing and communication design can never be overemphasized enough, as the case of EmpowHER India suggests. Donors are equally customers who trade in the currency of attention and purpose and the impact sector adheres to similar laws of marketing and customer management as the profit sector. It is critical to understand this. Out-of-box solutions are equally, if not more, relevant for the impact sector.
PROBLEM
The task at hand was to help Chakshu Foundation rebrand and reposition in a manner that reflected their manifold growth over the years (the foundation started in 1993) as also reflect their forays into wider social interventions since then. They started with eye camps and since then moved onto catalysing change in villages through women and a number of services like WaSH, legal assistance, education, social entrepreneurship, and building toilets. This involved rebranding, positioning, business design, a new website and content that could deliver on the above.
INSIGHT
Translating good into scale in the impact space uses the same levers as in the for-profit sector. Professionalising the impact space with modern elements of narratives, business design, content, creating sharp verticals, relevant marketing and pursuing systematic brand development helps in getting a higher share of mind even in the not-for-profit space.
Rebranding and repositioning is just not a name, identity or website change. It goes deeper across people, processes, services and experience. The rebranding and marketing also has to resonate with beneficiaries, donors, volunteers, partners. Hence, it is about business design more than just design.
ACTION
- A comprehensive strategic plan was crafted post user interviews, design research and stakeholder meetings. This provisioned for and articulated the expanded ambitions of the foundation, new areas of intervention and funding. It also seamlessly explained the transition/evolution of Chakshu to EmpowHER over the years, thereby helping the donors, partners and internal associates align with the changes in the brand, processes, marketing and content.
- Brand storytelling, content design and development helped flesh this strategy while giving credibility to the outreach, branding and marketing efforts.
- Brand design and development of EmpowHER that was created to serve as the embodiment of EmpowHER’s work and mission, and that cut across their marketing and communication collaterals, website and social media engagement.
- Website design and development that presented the narrative and life of EmpowHER digitally and served as its main pulpit for communication and outreach.
- Ideation and innovative steps helped augment the fund drive and outreach. Ideas around corporate linkages, and for creating a platform for engaging the community of donors (like Kathagram) and branded fund drives were conceived and deployed.
RESULTS
Sustained brand development and creative interventions can play a significant role in delivering scale and impact for the not-for-profit sector. The above interventions and the new refreshed brand and experiences helped the client boost their presence as also augmented the fund collection. Systematic brand development and the processes therein also helped the teams within professionalise and be more organised. This is something that the market responded to well with EmpowHER embarking on newer initiatives and areas of intervention.
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Swamy as he is fondly called, understands grassroots enterprise through two lenses – first as an advanced diploma recipient in molecular diagnostics further to an Msc. in biotechnology and second as the founder of a social enterprise called Kaskom, a farm to fabric collective that is revitalising India’s native cotton value chain. His passion for social enterprise and agro-ecology that weaves in local communities & practices runs deep. As does his understanding of the circular economy. He is also the Vice President at the Organic Farming Association of India (OFAI). He is involved in developing the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for all activities from seed to fabric, for the Indian short stapled indigenous cotton, along with Gandhigram Khadi Dindigul & Gram Seva Mandal, Wardha.
Swamy has conducted numerous workshops around the revival of organic practices and indigenous cotton, held several lectures apart from being a core participant in impactful programs. These include “Reviving community based indigenous seed systems” funded by SWISS-AID India, exploring linkages between weather parameters, paddy cultivation and adaptation activities in collaboration with Earthnet Foundation, Thailand, state coordination of “Save our rice campaign” in Karnataka and the “Community biodiversity management and conservation programme” funded by GGF.
Creative. Honest. Relevant. Be it a campaign, product design or a whitepaper,
Aakanksha’s mantra has never failed her. An alumna from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts – Singapore, specialised in design, media and animation, Aakanksha is first and foremost a storyteller, with a decade of experience developing brands across industries through consumer insights, advertising, marketing, branding, and content strategy. Conscientious and driven, Aakanksha prefers to use her creativity and understanding of human behaviour to craft impactful deliverables that do good. This has proven particularly beneficial for impact projects like Domex’s #ToiletForBabli and India’s Darwaza Band (Swachh Bharat campaign). She has worked with Lowe Lintas and The Glitch, with a portfolio comprising Flipkart, Tanishq, Carlsberg, Mumbai City FC, World Bank, Magnum Ice-cream, Arrow, and more. She has also worked on the Taj, Betterplace Safety Solutions, Nestaway, Botbot.al, and 2359Media.
Having spent over 25 years curating and designing high-end experiences and advising sustainable ventures, Philippa is passionate about discovering stories, culture and people and uses her empathy and passion to manifest unboxed ideas. Shuttling between Yorkshire and India, she helps clients reimagine the possible. A destination development specialist and, having worked on both sides of the industry, a consultant both to leading tour operators as well as DMCs, she is also the author of Escape to India, a columnist and advisor to charities and NGOs. Her adventures are literally a novel – skiing, trekking, white-water rafting, riding priceless Marwari horses, fine-dining with Maharajas, driving vintage cars, sleeping under the stars, discovering new-to-her wildlife species & being off the beaten track. Think Lara Croft, out of the box.
We call him our IP man. Having worked on building brand platforms for iconic brands like Harley Davidson, Ray Ban, Jack Daniel’s, Hard Rock Cafe, Raymond & Taj, Arpito’s body of work has been versatile and at scale. With a long foundational strategy stint, early in his career, with the Times Group in the President’s office, Arpito went on to become the Group Director at Rolling Stone and Man’s World India, launching and giving the cult brand legs in the brand activations and IP space. A Times School of Marketing alumnus, he is a hodophile, music connoisseur and possesses an uncanny knack for creative brand solutions. He revels in his understanding of community platforms, across scale, having engineered and conceived several initiatives for leading global brands. He is also the chief consultant to the Ministry of Music & Arts, Govt. of Nagaland, a consultant with Drishti and has led several initiatives with government bodies and social organisations.
Narrative could well be Anil’s middle name, which expresses itself to telling effect across his diverse roles as an entrepreneur, impact specialist, director-filmmaker, IP producer, business manager, festival director and Corp. communication. His earlier stint as the Editorial Director at Going to School Fund, a creative not-for-profit education trust, saw him ideate and design impact programs, content around sustainability, seeding entrepreneurial skills amongst young students in government schools. His work is powered by his extremely diverse life experiences. As a journalist storyteller with Times of India, HT, DNA and Mid-day, learning filmmaking at UCLA, as an assistant director on the National Award-winning film Fashion, writing a coffee table book with India’s first Oscar-winner, the late Bhanu Athaiya, titled The Art of Costume Design, published by Harper Collins with a foreword by Lord Richard Attenborough, being the India director of the Manhattan Short Film Festival, the world’s first global short film festival, co-creating the VOTE FOR INDIA platform and more. A polymath experience and perspectives are what he brings to venture design.
