Frawley | Strategic Marketing and Design Agency | Work

Building a New Brand for a Firm of Social Impact Specialists

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Client Testimonial

Karl Daly, Managing Director/Social Impact Specialist

“After 30 + years in the Financial Services business I wanted to create a vision and a brand for my new company. I was taking a step in a totally new direction and had the ‘bones’ of an idea I wanted to develop into something ‘real’. I decided to work with Frawley on my project and to say that the whole concept I held internally has come to ‘life’ is an understatement on my part. As we worked together the potential became so clear I could grasp it and the whole vision and brand burst into life before my eyes. The experience working with Tony Frawley and the team at Frawley has been an absolute pleasure and I cannot wait to launch the ‘Humanli’ concept into the marketplace.”

The Background

Humanli are Social Impact Specialists that help make a lasting positive impact on communities across Ireland on behalf of local companies, charities and community groups who need an advisory network with rigorous vetting processes to guide financial and volunteering resources during an era where social impact has become an integral part of corporate business strategy.

The Brief

As we were to embark on a branding project for a new business in a relatively new industry, we needed to research the market to understand growing trends within the CSR space and define what category this business occupied.

The client was coming from a successful background in Financial Planning and wanted to leverage this experience/expertise into a specialist niche within the field of Corporate Social Responsibility. We were to develop the brand’s naming and positioning to carefully reflect the vision and values of this new venture and then bring it to life with a brand identity design that visually reflected the brand strategy.

Brand Research & Insights

From a strategic workshop and market research conducted, we uncovered the following important insights that guided our strategic recommendations:

CSR is a very broad term that can cover a number of specialties: environmental sustainability, social impact, philanthropy, workplace development/employee engagement, ethical labour etc.

Social Impact is a niche specialism within CSR: it is concerned with the effect on people and communities as a result of an organisation’s action or inaction, an activity, project, programme or policy.

Social Impact has become an integral part of corporate business strategy: customers expect to see businesses contributing positively to their surrounding communities.

Social Impact careers are on the rise globally: there is a shifting attitude amongst millennials from salary/perks towards job fulfilment/purpose and a growing number of boutique firms/international management consultancies have started offering social impact careers.

Strategy

Brand Name

We needed to develop a name for this business that communicates the warm, altruistic nature of this brand, seeing others happy and focussing on people oriented charities that make a difference in communities i.e. Childrens, Mental Health, Families, Homeless, Domestic Violence, Elderly.

As this is a unique business venture, we wanted to develop an unclaimed invented name that this brand can own, centred around the meaning of what it means to be ‘human’ i.e. ‘showing the better qualities of humankind, such as kindness’. For these reasons, we recommended ‘Humanli’ and tied it in with the phrase ‘humanli possible’ which connects to the collective effort of people doing good for communities and the endless possibilities that can be achieved.

Brand Positioning Message

Making Social Impact Possible

Humanli are social impact specialists, because this is a relatively new business classification in Ireland, we needed to bring it to the fore by communicating it via the positioning message. We also wanted to create a subtle nod to the phrase ‘Humanli Possible’ by placing ‘possible’ at the end of the message. ‘Humanli Possible’ connects to the collective effort of people doing good for communities and the endless possibilities that can be achieved. Humanli is ‘making social impact possible’ for companies and charities/community groups by connecting those who have with those who have not.

Brand Mission

Brand Vision

USP

Brand Identity Design

The ‘u’ from Humanli is used to create a capital ‘H’. The significance of choosing the letter ‘u’ is that ‘you’ make the difference – whether ‘you’ are a Humanli, corporate or charity/community group team member.

The ‘u’ is reflected to create a tangible link. This is the link that Humanli makes between the corporate and the charity/community group. This link facilitates social interaction and positive change in the community.

The capital ‘H’ is crafted to show how once the link is established, it blossoms into a lasting and reciprocal relationship where companies have an opportunity to give back in an authentic, fulfilling way and charities/ community groups receive vital support to continue their work in the community. The result is positive social impact.

The ‘H’ is supported by carefully crafted rounded letterforms. The tagline is set in two weights with the emphasis on ‘Possible’, a nod to the play on words. The spur on the ‘a’ points downwards towards a bold ‘Possible’ adding significance and completing the phrase Humanli Possible.