Towards the end of last year, Family was approached by relationship charity, Scottish Marriage Care. 

Originally founded in 1965 as a Catholic marriage counselling organisation, the charity has since moved with the times to offer support and guidance for all sorts of different relationships. As a result, their name and brand became inconsistent with their much more inclusive offering.

That’s where Family came in. 

We were challenged to develop a fresh new brand identity for the charity – one that would accurately reflect their character and offering.

It was established that people come to the relationship charity for help, not only because they recognise that ‘the spark’ has gone, but because they realise it is worth getting back. The charity’s services are very positive, aiming to improve people’s relationships and bring couples, friends, and families closer together. They help to spark conversations, spark changes, and spark lost connections. They make relationships work.

Following this line of thinking, the new identity was born:

The Spark
Making relationships work

In terms of the visual identity, Family designed a contemporary and vibrant new logo, with coloured circles symbolising two people coming together to form a relationship. Sometimes the circles are very close; sometimes they are further apart – just like real people and real relationships.

Down-to-earth photography, used throughout the new marketing communications, aims to reflect the variety of different people and relationships supported by the charity.

To kick things off, Family created a strong outdoor and online advertising campaign, showing off The Spark’s new identity and driving traffic to their shiny new website – also developed by Family.

In line with the client’s launch event on 29^th January, we booked an advan to tour the streets of Glasgow on the 29^th and 30^th. As a little extra surprise, we also arranged for it to be parked outside The Spark’s office during the event – giving staff and guests a fab photo opportunity as they left the building. Then, throughout February, eye-catching 48-sheet posters adorned the streets of Glasgow and West Central Scotland. 

This offline activity was supported by a month’s worth of Google Adwords and display network advertising, which utilised channel, contextual, and semantic targeting to reach relevant audiences throughout Scotland.

In addition, Family designed a range of branded collateral, including stationery, folders, business cards, A4 posters, and leaflets.

Results so far have been fantastic. Calls to The Spark’s ‘Relationship Helpline’ have significantly increased, as have bookings for counselling appointments. Taking a look at website analytics, unique visit and total visit figures for February 2014 are both more than double what they were for February last year. Even comparing February 2014 to January 2014, unique visits are up 76% and total visits are up 62%. 

The team at The Spark has been receiving plenty of positive feedback on their new identity, and morale is high.

Stella Gibson, Chief Executive of The Spark, says: 
“We’re confident this is the start of a beautiful relationship.” 

To check out The Spark’s new website and find out more about their services, visit www.thespark.org.uk