The document summarizes Together for Short Lives' brand journey after merging with two other charities in 2011. It discusses how they went through two interim names in two months before settling on "Together for Short Lives." They worked with an agency to develop the new name and visual identity within 6 weeks to meet a deadline. While it was a challenge to create and launch the new brand so quickly, over 18 months they have built up the brand through developing collateral, messaging, and internal/external communications. The process highlighted lessons about involving stakeholders, managing change, and the need for an iterative approach to building a brand over time.

1. Our brand journey
through charity
merger
Myra Johnson
Director of Communications

2. About Together for Short Lives
 We merged in Oct 2011 to be one voice for UK children’s palliative care.
 We represent the UK’s 49,0000 children and young people with life-limiting
and life-threatening conditions.
 We support everyone who loves and cares for children with life-limiting and
life-threatening conditions – families, professionals and services, including
children’s hospices.
 Our work helps to ensure that children can get the best possible care,
wherever they are, and whenever they need it.
 In doing this, we help children, young people and their families to make the
most of precious time.

3. Our members
Our work is strengthened through our members
Families are at the heart of all our work
 Families
 Professionals
 Organisations – including children’s hospices and other support services


4. Four strategic aims
Together for Short Lives wants to see a world where every
child and family gets:
 The right information from the moment of diagnosis so they can make
choices about the care they receive.
 Easy access to services so that they can spend more time with their
children.
 The best quality of care.
 Support they can rely on now and throughout their journey.

5. Our brand journey
through merger

6. Merged in October 2011
 We have come a long way.
 Two new names in two months (more on that later)
 A unique branding journey
 We love our brand and are proud of all that Together for Short Lives has
achieved.
 One of the most challenging projects – but equally most exciting.
 Couldn’t have achieved it without our fabulous Comms Team and all at
Together for Short Lives
 So where did it all begin?

8. Life pre merger
 Two national charities based in Bristol with a long heritage
 Both had a similar mission – to provide the best possible care to children
with life-threatening and life-limiting conditions and their families.
 Different emphasis and different key stakeholders – but essentially had the
same vision
 Long history of collaborating and partnership working.
 Long history of talking about merger.

9. Brands pre merger
• Sector wide – for families, • Representing all children’s hospices.
professionals and organisations.
• Focus on fundraising, awareness
• Focus on research, good practice, raising and PR and supporting hospice
and clinical focus development

10. The merger journey
 In 2011 – funding available to fuller explore merger and merger steering
group established.
 Comms Team started planning in April
 30 August 2011 – decision to merge announced internally
 All happened very quickly indeed
 2 October the two organisations had “moved in” and we publicly announced
our merger
 We had become one voice for children’s palliative care

11. Two phases of branding
 Parallel process of planning for decision to merge or not
 Stage 1 – a short term interim identity which brings the organisations
together

 Stage 2 – the development of a new permanent name, brand and visual
identity for the organisation once the merger had been well established
internally and externally

 We knew it would be challenging to deliver new brand in the early days


12. Challenges
 Two teams joining together had only just happened
 All staff and trustees needed to get used to the change in each of the two
charities’ missions and values.
 Yet to develop our three year strategy
 Focussed on merger
 Two operational plans to deliver


13. Towards a new brand
 Merger communications team
 Low level initial rebrand in the short term – with a small budget spend
 A “merger” brand that showed the partnership of the two charities
 Addressing all our key stakeholders
 One voice for children’s palliative care in the UK

 Positioning of ACT & Children’s Hospices UK together with uniting strapline:

14. Our first name

15. Brand collateral
 Tweaked the typefaces and colours
 Only rebranded key documents – and did the minimum to get us to the point
of merger
 Website landing page
 Minimal rebranded collateral
 Social media
 Soft launch of name and merger

16. A short lived brand
 By1 November we had changed our name
 The ultimate Communication challenge or Communication nightmare?

 One new charity and two names in two months!
 A calculated risk
 Why would anyone do that?

18. Calculated risk
Unique opportunity to raise awareness of the needs of
children and families
 Raise valuable funds for our members
 Promote our charity brand

 BUT, we didn’t have a memorable name or identity - long, complex, difficult
to remember
 Should we press ahead regardless or fast track a rebrand?
 Whatever – X Factor needed our logo in six weeks!

19. A new name in 6 weeks
 Emergency Board, SMT and Comms meeting.
 Remember we still hadn’t officially launched the first brand!
 Risk assessment
 Decided we should explore possibility
 Established brand team
 Developed a creative brief

20. The comms challenge
Bare bones of a brand in six weeks, the rest would have to follow

 Research and naming
 Logo development, colour palette and brand guidelines

 Basic brand collateral
 Website landing page and social media
 Communications plan for launch
 6 weeks to go...should be easy!

21. Stage one: Naming
 Develop a Creative Brief and researched agencies
 Identify budget
 Out to tender, interviews, appointment
 All this, at the point of merger!
 We still had to implement our interim brand
 Confidentiality – had to keep things pretty tight as we didn’t know if it would
really happen

22. Spencer du Bois
 Max du Bois and John Spencer
 Brutally Sensitive
 Loved the challenge
 Could meet our deadline
 Worked round the clock to develop our name – they said they didn’t need
much sleep!
 We didn’t get much sleep either.

23. Developing the scope
 Immediate briefing session with John and Max
 Agreed timetable
 Process for consultation, feedback to Brand Steering Group, timetable for
trademarks and legal checks
 Revolution or evolution
 Iconic, descriptive or indirect
 Talking to stakeholders

24. Authoritative yet friendly
 Mission and vision
 Audiences – families, professionals, organisations, funders, general public
 Values
 Challenge of the language of children’s palliative care
 Sensitivities
 Descriptive
 Looked at our heritage

25. Name short list
 Workshops with staff team and trustees
 Limited time to test with stakeholders
 Family brand group
 Three key dates:
 4 October Long list
 5 October Short List and Survey
 By 11 October we needed to agree the name

26. Our short list
We ended up with a short list of five options.
Clear winner:
Short Lives


27. Short Lives
Softening words

 Treasuring Short Lives
 Making the most of Short Lives
 Short Lives: Precious Time
 Short Lives: One Dream
Nothing felt right...so we locked ourselves in a darkened room

28. Together for Short Lives
 Thought long and hard about where we had come from, our stakeholders
and the spirit of merger.
 We found our name: Together for Short Lives
 So all we needed now was:
 Board approval
 Legal and trademark checks, buy url
 Develop a logo and colour palette in 10 days
 Simple! Just another few days locked in a dark room

29. Links to the past
 ACT’s strapline: Valuing short lives and Children’s Hospice UK – butterfly
icon
 ACT & Children’s Hospices UK – working together to make the most of short
lives
 Taking elements of the merged charities’ brands
 We needed a butterfly: just had to draw the right one to represent children
 The essence of our work with children – fragile, precious, beautiful and
fleeting
 Vibrant colours, plus a font that represented our charity – a desire to be
authoritative but friendly

33. We made
our
deadline

35. Next steps

36. Just the start of a journey
 We made the X Factor deadline
 Launched on 1 November, with minimal collateral
 Brand guidelines
 Landing page
 Stationery and basic branded documents
 New social media names
 It was just the beginning...We now had a brand to build

37. 18 months
on

40. Our brand has arrived
We now have a full range of brand collateral – but some still needs updating
But it has taken 18 months to really feel at one with our brand.
We are all very proud of our brand and very much owned by all the team
Some important milestones in our journey:
 Developing our visual identity
 Brand positioning
 Key messages and tone of voice

41. Making our brand come to
life
 Review of brand positioning/messages
 Suite of regular publications
 Strong visual identity and colour palette
 Range of brand styles for different audiences
 We needed to have all of this in place to inform the development of our new
website

45. The secret of our success
 The best Communications and External Affairs Team
 A strong SMT and Board of Trustees
 Commitment, energy and loyalty
 Excellent internal merger management – taking the team and organisation
with us on the journey
 A branding agency who you can get on with
 You can’t rush or do it all overnight. Be patient – a good brand will take time


46. Sharing our journey
 Playing the long game – name, brand, and merger – not everyone is going
to be happy
 The name and logo are just the start of your brand journey – Building your
brand is a lifetime commitment
 Involve and empower your team to build the brand
 Listen to feedback – good and bad
 Put as much energy into managing brand internally and externally

 Review, review and review

47. Guiding principles
 At times it felt impossible and nothing seemed to right
 But – the guiding principle that really helped me and the team were:
Don’t expect the ‘eureka moment’
Be prepared for flack
 Be brave
 Ultimately, a name is just a word and only part of a brand, and it’s important
to appreciate how much it can do and also how much it can’t do.

48. Do people
like our
brand?

51. Any questions