Cats Protection wanted to bring its brand into the 21st century while celebrating its proud heritage as the UK’s leading cat charity. With a team of more than 11,000 people, made up of employees and loyal volunteers, we needed to help everyone understand the reasons behind the rebrand.
With a playful new logo and more grown-up colour scheme, the new brand was a closely guarded secret. But Cats Protection wanted its people to see the benefits it would bring – without spoiling the surprise. Our campaign needed to create momentum and energy towards the launch livestream. The result? Teams were excited to talk about the new brand and how it would help the charity’s legacy for the long term.
Cats Protection has been championing cats’ rights for nearly a hundred years. But, with a brand that was showing its age, it was time for an update. They asked us to help share their rebrand with their people in a way that would create excitement for the reveal while helping both employees and volunteers understand why it was a valuable investment.
As a charity, Cats Protection needs to spend every penny carefully. We helped the team understand how this investment will bring in more volunteers, donations and future-proof the charity.
We planned a series of ‘tease’ communications to lay the breadcrumbs for the launch. These revealed small sections of the refreshed brand without spoiling the surprise. The series of GIFs showed hints of the updated design, as well as some happy cats.
Each audience needed a tailored message to understand why this rebrand would help their role – and the charity – in future. Our briefing and ‘cat stat’ packs for centres, shops, branches, managers, employees and volunteers explained in more detail what the changes meant for each group.
We launched with a celebration live-stream event, giving employees and volunteers the space and time to listen to leaders and ask questions. We created a logo ‘unboxing’ reaction film with team members and special celebrity guests talking about the rebrand – a big hit with the team on the day.
The build-up to the rebrand launch received much more interest and engagement from employees and volunteers than with other communications. The average email receives a 25 per cent open rate among employees, with only eight per cent for volunteers. With our rebrand communications, those numbers more than doubled – this was consistent across all communications.
We purposely kept the assets timeless and undated, meaning that Cats Protection can reuse them in the future and get maximum value for their investment – essential when working with a charity.
