The Security Foundation: Leveraging Creativity and Integration to Build Brand Awareness
Introduction
Securing a complex future
Every year, the world gets more complicated. Advances in technology that bring us closer together also introduce new risks. Travel, trade, transport, business, education and more all come with their own challenges, and each time they overlap there is a new intersection to protect.
The International Security Foundation was established in 2011 to help address this growing global security hurdle. Their mission was a new one: to serve at the confluence of the private and public sectors, working as a liaison to improve security at home and abroad through enhanced information-sharing, benchmarking, educational programs and fundraising.
Across more than a decade, the ISF organization and work continued to evolve, expanding both in size and in focus to meet changing security challenges around the world, collaborating to confront global terrorism, crime and natural disasters, and supporting smaller security non-profits in the U.S.
The Challenge
Partnering for a New Era
The ISF needed a rebrand. After a year of mergers and acquisitions, growth and strategic planning, board members were looking for a new identity to reflect the new scope of the organization — and an agency partner that could deliver creative results.
They turned to PAN with two main goals in mind:
- Conduct a branding and communications audit
- Develop a fresh look and feel, including a new logo, best-practice rollout plan and timeframe for the name change from the International Security Foundation (ISF) to The Security Foundation (TSF)
Simple — but only in theory.
The Solution
Our team is no stranger to big projects or careful intricacies.
We quickly developed a three-phased approach to transform ISF into the newly minted TSF.
Across a three-month span, our team would work with client stakeholders to Set the Foundation, Build the Brand and Roll Out.
Brand and Communications Audit. We conducted interviews with internal ISF SMEs to support a qualitative and quantitative brand and messaging analysis and paired that effort with a social media audit and website analysis.
Messaging and Visual Identity Development. Content and creative teams developed a TSF style including positioning, personality, archetype and tone of voice, and brand guidelines outlining strategy, visual identity, logos, fonts, color scheme and templates.
Brand Roll Out Plan and Timeline. The team produced a final brand book and communications strategy to promote the new name and share the transformation with both internal and external audiences.
The Impact
For an organization with such far-reaching influence and a growing impact on global affairs, the pressure to nail the new brand identity was significant.
TSF stakeholders unveiled the new brand and positioning at their annual dinner to overwhelmingly positive reviews, including “chills,” “goosebumps,” and “a sense of pride.” Board members felt that the PAN approach had captured the messaging and brand essence in a way that had eluded them until now.
TSF was so pleased with the outcome that they chose to retain PAN for Phase 2 of the project, which included a website redesign, content strategy and the production of their first brand video, which drove a significant uptick in donations. That video will be highlighted across TSF social channels and web pages to announce the rebrand publicly, but the early feedback is already in.