An introduction to community campaigning and branding with Byron Greens as a case study.

1. Community Engagement
in the 21st Century
PART I

2. from this…

3. …to this

4. Most of us think a brand is…

5. And we often think logos are brands…

6. But your brand is more than this
Good branding tell people what your organisation stands for.
A brand is your story and it is made up of a number of elements.
1. Graphics
Symbols, logos and colours are important. They aid recognition.
2. Personality + Values = ATTITUDE
Human 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. Implementation
Your 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.

7. July 2012

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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

11. How do we communicate modern,
responsive, inclusive and innovative

12. Newcastle

13. Northern Rivers

14. Marrickville

15. Tweed

16. Central Coast

17. Byron

18. 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.

19. Lots of iterations
but one main idea

20. Which developed over time

21. But…

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