Today in the UK sees the launch of a project we’ve been working on for nearly two years: a comprehensive rebrand of the Disasters Emergency Committee, or DEC for short.
The DEC was set up over 45 years ago to fundraise collectively in times of significant crisis, and to enable the major broadcasters to make public televised appeals for a group of charities, rather than singling out one for special treatment. It consists of 14 UK aid agencies, ranging in size from Oxfam, The British Red Cross and Save the Children to small to medium sized agencies.
This is a unique branding project since the DEC is only in the public eye for short amounts of time. Today it launches its Syria Appeal, which will continue for 10-14 days, when it and the 14 members will all raise funds collectively. Then it will 'disappear' until the next crisis.
It needed to make much more impact during an appeal, whilst allowing member agencies to fundraise on their own behalf as part of one co-ordinated campaign.
The new branding approach is based on concentric, ‘seismic’ rings, imparting urgency to the DEC and also, crucially, making a powerful link to each individual appeal.
So the Syria appeal is shown in use above, and other hypothetical examples are below.
The branding approach is being rolled out across all media, including TV idents for on-screen appeals.
Within the appeals, each of the member agencies have their own endorsement logos, which are used to ‘flag’ the appeal on their own sites.
There’s more information on the Syria Appeal here, and you can make a donation here.
There's also a longer and more detailed case study about the project within the main johnson banks site here.
Thanks to all the member agency design and marketing teams, Ogilvy for their above the line input and Martin Shannon for animation
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