DBA Design Effectiveness Awards 2009

Summary
A very blue world of fragmented local identities used to be the many faces of the British Chamber of Commerce (BCC). Squeezed between well-organised and aligned business organisations like the CBI and the IoD, the BCC had little room to manoeuvre and little national visibility. The vision was to make their network an essential part of growing businesses in the UK. A new identity was developed, the growing B logo central to the concept. Two years later, David Frost, the Director General of the BCC is the very public voice of British business and a regular national media contributor on the health of British business. Sponsorship has grown from £109,000 to £230,000 from 2007 to 2009 and national event participation grew from 528 to 1,145, despite the recession environment.

Summary
Tower Hamlets’ recycling rate was the lowest of any London Borough and well below the national average. The ‘We Can Recycle More’ campaign aimed to improve Tower Hamlets’ yearly residential recycling rate from 12.89% to 19% by March 09. The challenge was significant given the limited campaign budget available and the complexities of the audience. Tower Hamlets has a multi-cultural community with a large Bangladeshi Muslim population. It also has one of the highest levels of high rise dwellings in London housing some of the most deprived communities in the UK, while the development of Canary Wharf introduced a wealthy population to the Borough. All parts of the community had to feel empowered to take part with the aim of achieving a sense of belonging and community strength through participation. As a result of the campaign, the yearly target was exceeded at 19.51%, and the cumulative total for the campaign period of October 08 to March 09 reached an impressive 21.53%.

Summary
Higgidy pies were snowballing in popularity and earning a glowing reputation for the cafés and restaurants that stocked them. This encouraged the team to begin selling the pies under their own Higgidy brand and so needing a brand identity and packaging. The brand essence of ‘The Uncommon Pie’ was a play on words that reflected the brand truth, that no-one was making pies of this quality.Visual disruption was essential. A copy story runs around the pack featuring light-hearted illustrations of the key players and the ingredients. A window allows the hand-made features of the pie to be seen and a strong and consistent brand colour provides outstanding range blocking on shelf. Branded sales reached an annual running rate of £5.2m within 21 months. Sales have been supply constrained since October 2008. From sales of £0.5m before the launch, total sales have grown to £8.1m pa.

Summary
Graduates Yorkshire (GY) is a recruitment brand aimed at graduate employers in the Yorkshire region. It needed to develop a new identity to smoothly transition the service from a free one to paid-for. The 'Put Yourself in the Picture' multi-channel campaign was developed despite transition to paid-for service, sales went up from zero to a total of £1,036,000 in two years. Several brand extensions have been created including consultancy, franchising and special projects. Their database of graduates is up by 370% and improved brand credibility led to several blue chip businesses wins.

Summary
Breastfeeding promotion has a key role to play in tackling a range of health, social, economic and environmental issues. In addition to improving the health and wellbeing of individual mothers and babies, breastfeeding promotion is being championed as a key strand in government attempts to reduce NHS expenditure and uproot damaging health inequalities. There is a direct correlation between breastfeeding prevalence and socio-economic status, with babies from disadvantaged backgrounds much less likely to be breastfed. Given that these communities already have a greater instance of other child-related health problems, it is in these groups that the health benefits of breastfeeding would have most impact. A comprehensive and sustainable behaviour change programme was designed that focused on increasing breastfeeding initiation within these groups. Incorporating service development, co-creation, peer-to-peer mobilisation, stakeholder engagement, group identity formation and a groundbreaking, through-the-line communications campaign, the intervention took a holistic approach based on social marketing principles and established behavioural theory. 12 months after launch, the programme can be shown to have brought significant improvement with a 13% increase in breastfeeding initiation over first 6 months against a 2% target and a 9% increase over first 12 months against a 2% target.

Summary
This design effectiveness paper demonstrates how the complete design overhaul of the Ginsters brand has resulted in significant and tangible benefits to the business. Ginsters was an established brand that was under threat from all sides: increased competition in the ‘impulse/food-on-the-move market’, growing threat of own label, the inexorable trend towards healthier eating and limited distribution (multiples). The rejuvenation resulted in a gained record total market share (10.1%), 24% growth year on year and attracted over 1 million new households to the brand.

Summary
Featuring a novel over-ice serve, Magners was enthusiastically adopted by a new generation of drinkers over the hot World Cup summer of 2004. Recognising the threat to their traditional cider brands, Scottish & Newcastle (S&N) gave battle by launching Bulmers in a head-on attack in May 2005. By early 2008 Bulmers had captured 16% of packaged on-trade cider sales. Magners, however, held 61% share, with twice the distribution of Bulmers and a 25% higher rate of sale. In March 2008, Bulmers responded with a fresh label design. Rate of sale rose 28% against all cider r.o.s growth of 12%1, In a recessionary year, on-trade sales growth for cider slowed to +2.4% and while Magners fell 31%, Bulmers grew 27%. Results mirrored in the off-trade, Bulmers sales up 9.9%, Magners down 2.3%. Bulmers’ value share gap with Magners narrowed from 25.4 to 16.7%. Overall sales went up £28m, a 90-fold ROI.

Summary
As of 1st April 2009, the CORGI registration scheme would be no more, wiping out the 93% public awareness that the incumbent scheme had achieved over the years. From day one, British homeowners would need to know the name of the new scheme, the accreditation mark they should look for when using a gas fitter, and most importantly trust the service provided by businesses registered under the scheme. Gas Safe Register replaced CORGI gas registration on April 1st 2009. Within two months of its launch, Capita achieved 46% awareness of the switchover from CORGI to a new name for the gas registration scheme and 19% recognition of Gas Safe as the new brand name (out of those aware of the switchover).

Summary
Harlequins is one of Rugby Union’s premier clubs with a long and illustrious history dating from 1866. The decision was made by its chief executive to stage a major rugby match just after Christmas 2008. It would be a Guinness Premiership match between Harlequins and Leicester Tigers and would take place at the England national stadium at Twickenham instead of their usual home ground. Normally, Harlequins home games take place at their ground which has a maximum capacity of 12,700 but for the Twickenham game they would need to sell 50,000 tickets. A powerful promotional campaign was needed in order to sell the required number of seats.It was felt that a big match needed a big brand and this brand became the heart of the campaign as well as at the heart of the designs. For The Big Game, a very iconic visual identity was created, redolent of the Hollywood epics. This was used for posters and press advertisements and was applied to various websites. The campaign succeeded in its target of filling all the seats and went on to win the Sports Industry Awards 2009 for the Best Integrated Sport Marketing Campaign.

Summary
The Lotus caramelised biscuit is often served in hotels, restaurants, cafés and pubs as a hot drink accompaniment. However, UK consumers have found the product hard to track down in retailers. Lotus Bakeries wanted the brand both to stand out on shelf and express a more premium positioning and retail price point so that they would have the base they needed to extend the brand further into new premium variants. A new pack design was created has attracted younger consumers – important for the long term health of the brand. The average retail price has increased an 33% from 55p to 73p over the 30 weeks since redesign, despite the economic recession and a biscuit marketplace showing no growth. The new UK design has since been rolled out internationally and across other usage occasions, including a new premium Impulse Twin Pack which is available for consumers to buy over the coffee shop counter.