Challenge
The Southeast Dairy Association (SUDIA) is one of c21’s founding clients and for the nearly 25 years the companies have worked together, SUDIA has had multiple brand managers responsible for creating collateral and messaging for the nonprofit organization. The result was a diluted brand with inconsistent communication materials.
Solution
c21 recommended a comprehensive communications audit for SUDIA that would review internal and external communication materials to determine their brand strength cohesiveness and effectiveness.
c21 reviewed presentations, internal memos, email campaigns, letterhead, fliers, website, brochures, signage, posters, branded merchandise and much more to evaluate whether the branding and messaging were consistent, how effective they were at reaching target audiences, what messages were conveyed through the images used, etc.
Based on this analysis, c21 developed a complete set of recommendations to ensure that future communication materials accurately portray SUDIA’s brand, convey the intended messages and effectively reach target audiences.
Results
During SUDIA’s communications audit, c21 found that the logo, which had not changed for more than 15 years, no longer matched the modern look and feel of the organization’s innovative marketing efforts. Also, inconsistent use of and changes to the logo had left it pixilated and fuzzy in many collateral materials.
c21’s recommendations included updating the logo to make it more modern, creating detailed brand standards that would help prevent the logo from being compromised over time and developing template materials for SUDIA’s most frequently used collaterals. The fresh new logo, shown to the left, was incorporated into all SUDIA’s marketing efforts.
In addition, c21 created more than 20 templates for SUDIA for its communication initiatives, including email marketing, invitations, memos and faxes, media relations, brochures, print newsletters and more, to ensure consistent branding and formatting. SUDIA received many compliments on its new look, and the consistency increased their email campaigns’ response rates from their members (dairy farmers) and their other stakeholders, including consumers, partners and media.