Children International
Finding a voice to end global poverty
Inspiring supporters with a bold brand vision
Challenge
Children International (CI) is a well-respected humanitarian organization helping children around the world break out of the cycle of poverty. The team at CI had made some big strides forward in their marketing with a renewed logo identity and website upgrade, but still had a need to refine brand positioning, voice and audience segmentation.
Solution
Working closely with the team at Children International, Native refined and locked in CI’s brand positioning, brand voice and visual applications, ultimately leading to the development of new media creative, video content, conversion pathways and social media strategy.
Brand Architecture
The heart of CI is at their community centers, where they’re embedded long-term with communities to create a space for children to grow, learn and play safely, as part of a holistic plan that helps kids end the cycle of poverty. We worked with the team to position the brand around the community centers and the incredible work that happens there and ripples out to the community.
CI had traditionally used an emotional, but guilt-driven, appeal to gain new sponsors and increase donations. The refreshed logo and colors gave way to a brand positioning that focused on bold, empowering messaging crafted to rally supporters to join in the fight to end global poverty.
Staff Workshops
To help take the message to the whole team, we partnered with CI to host a brand camp to help train the marketing team to embrace the brand day-in and day-out.
The workshop included an overview of the brand positioning, including a deep dive into why their focus should shift from guilt to to bold empowerment, voice and creative examples to show how the brand positioning should meet the market, and a Q&A session to address internal questions directly. At the end of the afternoon, the team walked away with the tools they needed to bring the brand to life.
Content Strategy
Starting at the root, we reviewed existing analytics and research to understand the CI audience and determine which current messages were resonating with existing sponsors and potential supporters.
Then, we developed content themes, audience segments and content ideas that aligned the brand message and audience preferences, all leading to the ever-important annual content calendar. Built-in flexibility allowed the team to come together monthly and review content needs, plans and move forward with confidence.
Content Creation
CI is dedicated to its work in the field, and we were lucky enough to join their team on a week-long video shoot covering the stories of kids, families and volunteers who make every day at the community center meaningful. The shoot resulted in personal story videos that showed the true stories of kids who have overcome much more than most people in just the first few years of their lives.
Driving from the brand positioning and content strategy, we worked with the CI team to develop a new media plan and marketing materials, including display ads, print ads, and informative one-sheets on the important programs CI brings to kids living in poverty.
Social Media Strategy
When it came time to translate the content strategy to social media, we partnered with the team at CI to evaluate their current social media channels, audience and content performance and develop a roadmap that would align their social channels with the new positioning and content.
The framework led to content writing and social media-optimized graphic design to round out the brand presence on all channels. The focus on leading users down ideal conversion paths and sharing relevant content resulted in a 116% increase in donations from social media in just the first two months.
“The team at Native are true partners, always bringing new thinking that pairs well with our own internal capabilities and experience. They consistently produce high-quality work that represents our brand well and gets our audiences engaged.”
SUSANA ESHLEMAN
President and CEO
CHILDREN INTERNATIONAL
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Justin Watkins
CEO — Founder jwatkins@nativedigital.com