Let's end bowel cancer and bowel disease

Creating a merged charity brand

Formed from two bowel research charities – Bowel & Cancer Research (B&CR) and Bowel Disease Research Foundation (BDRF) – this new charity needed a new name, clear consistent positioning, and a distinctive new visual identity.

Both founding charities had a limited profile beyond their core audiences. By combining the best of both organisations they hoped to improve awareness, attract more funding, and fund more research – ultimately helping more people suffering from bowel cancer and bowel disease.

Stakeholder research

IE led a brand workshop with the charity’s project steering group, to consult internal stakeholders about the charity’s audiences, their needs and their behaviours. We also discussed foundational decisions about the new brand, including how closely it should be aligned with each of the two merging charities.

We needed to hear from external voices too, so we conducted in-depth telephone interviews with people drawn from each audience – supporters, major donors, funding bodies, researchers, policymakers, strategic partners etc. This qualitative research was supplemented with a quantitative e-survey to a wider external database, to sense-check the charity’s internal assumptions about what the new brand and website should convey.

We then performed a gap analysis to compare internal perceptions with how the charity was viewed by the outside world and presented a number of recommendations back to the steering group.

40+

British MPs supported the launch – top three hashtags amongst MPs on launch day were #BRUK #BowelCancer and #BowelDisease.

Brand positioning and naming

Brand positioning to highlight research USP

In a crowded market with numerous cancer and disease-based charities, it was important to differentiate the new organisation around its main USP: Research.

Bowel diseases such as Crohn's, colitis, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and fecal incontinence affect over a million people in the UK, while bowel cancer is the second biggest cause of cancer deaths. But research into bowels is woefully underfunded compared with other health conditions.

Between them, BDRF and B&CR have already given over £9 million in grants to support academics and organisations with research into bowel cancer and bowel diseases. By leveraging the synergies of the two charities, they have ambitions to do much more.

Renaming

Choosing the right name for the charity was crucial.

‘Bowel’ and ‘Research’ were both essential ‘hygiene words’. Whilst the word 'Cancer' was certainly recognised as being useful and relevant, it was moved out of the name and into the charity's new strapline – 'Let's end bowel cancer and bowel disease.' – where it was placed alongside 'Bowel Disease' to describe more accurately the scope of the new charity's research work.

Having tested several options with its key audiences, the charity became Bowel Research UK.

A brand full of warmth, empathy and humour

Although research was seen as the key differentiator, the brand needed to balance the what (clinical research) with the why (to save and improve people’s lives).

Our research showed that both pre-existing brands had been perceived as rather cold and clinical, which was reflected in low awareness with the public and media. This needed to change in order to educate people about bowel conditions and attract more funding.

The newly formed Bowel Research UK needed to appeal to not just researchers, healthcare professionals and policymakers, but to patients, families and the public too. IE Brand’s job was therefore to create brand messaging and a visual identity full of warmth, empathy and even a little well-placed humour, to capture both the head and the heart.

101 million

opportunities to see news of the brand in the media, including Daily Telegraph

IE Brand has helped us to navigate the landscape of rebranding our charity. What has impressed me most is the continuity of care. From the bidding process to the reality of working with IE, there is absolutely no difference – IE make us feel like we are their top priority client. They are clearly very knowledgeable and skilful, and this comes through at every stage. They are undoubtedly bringing out the best in our charity and involving us at every step. They have helped us to negotiate some challenging internal conversations, providing support and options at every turn.

Kathryn Pretzel-Shiels, Board Member & Chair of Fundraising & Communications Committee, Bowel Research UK

Brand roll-out across website, social media & collateral

With the new brand messaging and visual identity agreed, IE Brand rolled this out across online and offline collateral.

Donorfy integration with WordPress site

The IE Digital team designed and delivered a new WordPress website, ready for the launch of the new charity name and brand identity.

The new site places a strong emphasis on fundraising and donations – integrating with JustGiving and the Donorfy fundraising CRM system to facilitate donor management and payment transactions through Stripe or GoCardless.

Brand guidelines, templates and other assets

We supplied Bowel Research UK with detailed brand guidelines to record best practice and enable their marketing team to police, protect and promote the new brand. Our copywriters captured the charity’s beliefs, tone of voice and messaging for different audiences in an easy-to-reference matrix.

A full suite of logos and graphical assets, templates for emails and brochures, and social media assets completed the package.

Social media and SEO strategy

It was important for the new website to build upon the combined online traffic and engagement for B&CR and BDRF.

IE Digital reviewed analytics for both sites and all social media platforms, to provide advice and guidance for the 'new world' of Bowel Research UK.

The new Social Media and SEO Strategy covers keyword targeting, search engine optimisation, general content writing, and the use of different social media to build awareness and support for the charity, and drive traffic to the new website.

Ongoing development and support

Following the successful launch of the new brand and website, Bowel Research UK and IE Digital have begun discussions about phase 2 of the website - exciting developments that will enrich the fundraising functionality and deepen the site’s integration with Bowel Research UK's Donorfy CRM.

2,355,000

impressions for Twitter hashtag #BRUK during the first week of launch.