PLUS is a South London based charity providing residential, respite, leisure and employment services for adults with learning disabilities. As an innovative organisation, highly committed to its mission, the PLUS Board and Management Team felt their brand did not reflect their ethos. We were asked to review and reposition the brand to better reflect its ethos.

1. CREATIVE NATION® | CASE STUDY : PLUS
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2. THE BRIEF:
PLUS is a South London based charity providing residential, respite, leisure and employment
services for adults with learning disabilities. As an innovative organisation, highly committed to
its mission, the PLUS Board and Management Team felt their brand did not reflect their ethos.
We were asked to review and reposition the brand to better reflect its ethos.
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3. THE WORK: DISCOVERY WORKSHOP
We facilitated a one-day workshop with the client to explore, define, articulate and visualise the
brand.
This involved:
• Identifying PLUS's diverse audiences and how best to engage and interact with them
• Establishing core values
• Defining differentiators and standards of performance excellence
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4. THE WORK: DATABASE
We found that the organisation was driven by the needs of service users. This responsive and
supportive ethos permeated the organisation and drove the business. Our role therefore, was to
support this by developing a brand identity and communications which conveyed this.
We began by creating a new database for PLUS:
• We defined populations within the PLUS 'family’
• We placed service users at the heart of the database, and mapped relationships from that starting
point
• We then explored, and tested, the types of communications they might be responsive to.
Friends Multi-Disciplinary
Family Teams
Service
General User Partner Orgs
Public
Potential Employees/
Volunteers
Potential
Service
Users PLUS Staff
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5. THE WORK: BRAND IDENTITY
We researched views on the existing brand identity. The results revealed a dissonance between
perceptions of the brand, as compared to experience of the brand. We wanted to know what
people thought, so we asked a random sample of people drawn from the general public in the area
of South London PLUS operate within.
This is how people perceived the brand identity:
Old-fashioned
Boring
Dated
Limited
Very 1980's
Amateur
Lacks Polish
Cheap
The contrast between the brand experience
versus the way it was perceived was stark.
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6. THE WORK: BRAND IDENTITY
Experience of the brand related many positive points. Services provided by PLUS were experienced
as comforting, enabling, positive, uplifting, safe, supportive, and focused yet flexible.
This was a far cry from perceptions of the brand.
“Staff try hard to make sure I do all of my activities. They take me to my parent’s home when I want to
visit them. My dad comes to visit me here whenever he wants.”
“When you start your first visit there, they show you to your bedroom and it is very comfortable for
users. [Residential Respite Care Location] . . . is a safe place to be when our parents & carers want to
take a break.”
“Could you please pass on our sincere gratitude to all the carers who have been extremely kind,
supportive and dedicated, this really showed when they all persevered in travelling through
extremely bad weather i.e. turning up on time and being very pleasant and jolly. I can’t express how
thankful we are to them all.”
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7. THE WORK: THE ASSETS
We developed a visual identity to communicate the PLUS ethos.
We approached this in an evolutionary
manner, initially by developing the existing
logo – then by developing a new identity
adapted from the old look – and finally by
developing an entirely new look
The evolutionary adaptation of the old
identity gave us interlocking rings,
highlighting the organisation's enabling and
supportive approach to addressing service
user's needs
We underscored the enduring nature and
commitment of the organisation in the classic
typography
We also wanted to convey the sense of a
forward looking, innovative, capable and
needs led organisation
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8. THE WORK: THE ASSETS
We carried this new look and feel across all print formats and real world conference banners.
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9. THE WORK: WEBSITE
We created a new website, with new content to reflect the PLUS ethos and aims
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10. THE WORK: TESTIMONIAL
We are very happy with the work Creative Nation delivered for us.
• The team were pleasant and positive, and took on board all of our recommendations.
• The discovery workshop helped us to identify issues and develop our own responses to
the changes which affect our organisation.
• In helping us to communicate our work better, Creative Nation helped us realise how
much we had already achieved, and continue to achieve.
• The new look and feel is light, positive and helps convey what we are about better.
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