Invitation to Tender - Amnesty International UK brand strategy refresh and creation of brand action plan
ABOUT US
As a global movement of more than 10 million people, Amnesty International is the world's largest grassroots human rights organisation. We investigate and expose abuses, educate and mobilise the public, and help transform societies to create a safer, more just world. We received the Nobel Peace Prize for our life-saving work. Amnesty International UK (AIUK) is a national section of this global movement. We have around half a million supporters, members and activists in the UK.
ABOUT THE PROJECT
With implementation of our bold, ambitious strategic plan and theory of change for 2022-2030 well underway – including exciting new operational plans now in place for 2024 and beyond to help us deliver on them – AIUK's vision for the future and what we have set out to achieve has never been clearer or better defined. The following three, interdependent strategic goals form the basis of our current organisational strategy:
- Goal One (Change attitudes to human rights): By 2030 human rights will be better understood, valued, and defended by increasingly large sections of the public. Racist, sexist, misogynistic homophobic, transphobic, and other stereotypes that facilitate human rights violations will be declining in public and political discourse.
- Goal Two (Build a powerful movement): By 2030 more people, especially people or groups who currently have less social power, have the connectedness, access, protection, resources and will to stand up for their rights and those of their communities.
- Goal Three (Win human rights victories): By 2030, Amnesty International UK and our partners will have won key human rights victories on the way to securing long-term sustainable change for people in the UK and around the world.
In 2022 we commissioned a significant piece of market research into the attitudes of people in the UK towards human rights. This research helped us to identify target audiences for all our public-facing mass communications and campaigning across all three of these goals, for at least the next seven years. As we embark on implementing our strategies to reach these audiences – whether seeking to change attitudes, build a powerful movement, achieve human rights change, or raise money – we have identified that building the value of Amnesty’s brand with the UK public will be a key contributor to our success.
We are now seeking to take the first step in this journey: to take stock of our current brand strategy, reevaluate it in light of our current organisational goals and target audiences, and adapt it as needed to ensure it is as robust and strategically aligned to them as possible. To be clear, this is not a rebrand or even necessarily a move to completely overhaul our current brand strategy. Rather, we are looking for a partner to help us analyse our 2022 research findings and their implications for our existing strategy from a brand perspective, advise on and implement changes as necessary, and develop a brand action plan for 2024 and beyond to help us achieve our goals.
ABOUT YOU
We are looking to partner with a creative, strategic consultancy or individual with expertise in devising brand strategies, and a passion for bringing those strategies to life through actionable plans that clients can run with. The successful consultant will have extensive experience of getting to the heart of clients’ audience data & insights – and applying these to ensure that the brand strategies and action plans they produce put the audience first and are strongly aligned with organisational goals.
A track record of delivering similar projects for other charities, NGOs or purpose-driven brands would be a significant bonus, as would experience of building anti-racism, inclusion and equitability into brands’ communications. It is also important to us that any partner we work with shares AIUK’s values and understands the challenges inherent in being a movement of people.
SCOPE
It is important to note that we are not seeing this as a rebranding exercise. As the UK section of a globally recognised brand, AIUK has a well-established visual identity that we are not seeking to change. However, we know from our research that despite being a recognisable brand, we are not widely understood or valued by large sections of the UK public. We are also perceived as being technical, inaccessible and not very relevant to people in the UK currently.
In a bid to change this, from 2024 onwards we will be investing more resources than ever before into achieving this aim:
More of the public value AIUK and the work we do. The public have a positive emotional connection to AIUK, understand the relevance of our work and are ready to take part in the work we do. Political audiences see AIUK as valuable and influential. We have future proofed AIUK by reaching younger audiences.
Among the long-term objectives that sit underneath this aim – which the work resulting from this project will be integral in helping us to achieve over time – are:
- To see an increase in positive sentiment towards AIUK
- To reach and inspire new audiences, including a significant proportion of under-35s
- To see an increase in the number of people who report a propensity to support AIUK activities (both
- financial and non-financial)
- To build and deepen brand affinity and engagement with existing AIUK supporters
Our last brand positioning refresh was a significant piece of work that was carried out relatively recently, in 2018. This was based on our 2016-2020 communications strategy, More People, and focused on helping us to reach and engage the target audience segments defined within that. Now that we have a new organisational strategy and different target audiences in place, we recognise that our current brand playbook needs to be reviewed within the current context.
We suspect that there may not be a need for a drastic overhaul of many of the core elements of our current brand positioning (e.g. the pillars of our brand personality and our tone of voice), as our aim and objectives for building the value of the brand have not fundamentally changed. However, based on our most recent research and what we know about the new audiences we are trying to reach, we do feel that our current brand strapline, ‘Humanity Wins’, may no longer be the best platform through which way to publicly convey our brand positioning.
DELIVERABLES
We see the main deliverables for this project being:
- A review of our current brand strategy and positioning
- A refresh of our current brand playbook
- A new brand strapline to replace ‘Humanity Wins’
- A plan of action for brand work in 2024 and beyond (we are looking to work with the successful partner to establish the finer details of what this should incorporate and the format it should take, but as we would like it to include measurable objectives and targets).
SUBMISSIONS & TIMELINE
We are open to having virtual pre-meets (e.g. on Microsoft Teams) with interested parties to chat through the brief and answer any questions you may have before compiling your response. If this would be of interest, please contact Helen Lindley (AIUK’s Communications Planner) on helen.lindley@amnesty.org.uk to arrange.
We ask that top-line responses (in Word, PDF or PowerPoint format) are received by Thursday 22nd February 2024.
We would like responses to include:
- Background information about your experience and any similar projects you have worked on
- An outline of how you would approach this project, including key project stages and timeline
- An overview of proposed ways of working between AIUK team(s) and your team(s)
- A detailed budget breakdown
- Rate card for any additional, optional work that falls out of scope.
We will then be in touch by Thursday 29th February 2024 to invite shortlisted parties to pitch on Wednesday 13th March 2024, before making a final decision and awarding the contract.
Ideally, we would like this project to be reaching completion by the end of April 2024, so we would appreciate it if respondents could take this into account when compiling responses and setting out project timelines.
As part of our commitment to ethical procurement we will also require prospective partners to complete our ethical screening process, details of which will be provided if you are shortlisted.
SUPPORTING RESOURCES / FURTHER READING
Please follow this link to access a folder containing the following resources:
- AIUK’s 2022-2030 Strategic Plan and Theory of Change
- 2022 Yonder research commissioned by AIUK into attitudes towards human rights
- AIUK’s target audience profiles for 2024 and beyond
- AIUK’s Goal One Strategy
- AIUK’s current brand playbook
- AIUK’s former communications strategy, More People (2016-2020)
- AIUK’s suite of brand guides for:
- Visual identity
- Editorial style
- Using photography
- Anti-racist, inclusive and equitable communications
BUDGET
The budget available for this project is circa £25,000 (inclusive of VAT).
CONSIDERATIONS
We will consider applications from individuals or firms based anywhere in the world, but do get in touch if you are considering pitching for the work from outside of the UK as there may be data protection and taxation considerations.
Please note, the successful tender will be required to enter a contractual arrangement for a supply of services. This will not constitute employment for tax purposes, and the agency, consultant or freelancer will not be entitled to our colleagues’ terms and conditions.