New charity logo: Parabottle

Design should always make a difference, but never more so than on our work with a new charity: Parabottle. Parabottle aims to air-drop tens of thousands of emergency survival pods into isolated international disaster areas within 24 hours of a natural or manmade crisis. It's been developed to fill that gap, before more substantial aid can be delivered.



Parabottle was launched last week, at an event in Exeter, as they begin their fundraising efforts to enable the development and testing of the prototype. Their message has been neatly captured in this fantastic one-minute film, created by Em Cooper and commissioned by Kor Communications.



You can find out more about Parabottle on their website (developed by Optix Solutions) and you can read some recent press coverage here.

We got involved in the project at the beginning of 2010, when were asked to develop a logo by Nick Sprague, an Exeter-based entrepreneur and founder of Parabottle. The logo needs to communicate the message of 'airborne aid' as easily as possible, to overcome any cultural and language barriers. Nick says:

“The first 24 hours after a disaster are crucial to the survival and wellbeing of those affected by any disaster, with the threat of dehydration and disease ever present. Parabottle has been designed to provide basic emergency survival commodities before aid agencies arrive to provide more comprehensive relief.”

If you would like to support Parabottle you can make donations here, through Just Giving.

Making a difference

We have been working with MAS-SW (Manufacturing Advisory Service - South West) on a series of literature, highlighting the support they offer to businesses that embrace the opportunities that exist in a growing 'green' market. There is a market for Low Carbon manufacturing worth billions of pounds in the south west alone.


The aim of the literature was to encourage business to consider the Low Carbon market - renewable energy products, for example - and whether the products they already manufacture could be used in that sector. It also covered Advanced Manufacturing, looking at new processes and equipment, as a way of saving time and raw materials in the manufacturing process.


Paul Gilbert, Partnership Specialist at MAS-SW said, "Our research had shown that businesses couldn't see the opportunities that existed in this area, so we needed to remove that barrier. The suite of literature that Alder and Alder produce has been key to helping us do that. It conveys a complicated message clearly, and has helped us to achieve the engagement we wanted."


Working with businesses that are embracing the issue of sustainability is something we really enjoy. Supporting the work of MAS-SW on this project, as they search for the innovators that can shape our future, was particularly satisfying.

And the outlook is...

We've just received these samples - and we wanted to share them with you! It is a project we've recently completed for Climate South West. The aim was to promote awareness in the tourism sector of extreme weather - things like flooding, droughts and heatwaves - and the impact it can have on their business.



Our brief was to create five messages and images, to raise awareness of the issue (and impact) of extreme weather, then direct the audience to the website (www.climateprepared.co.uk), where they could find more information.



To maximise the impact we kept the messages simple (letting the website do the hard work!), and used illustration to create images unique to this campaign - and tailored to our messages.

Another year for Hospiscare

This month saw the publication of Hospiscare's Annual Review, providing a snapshot of the work they've done throughout the year. This is the fourth Annual Review we have designed for Hospiscare, and it's always really interesting, and moving, to read about the work they do caring for patients with terminal illnesses and their families.



One of the features this year was a focus on one particular patient, highlighting all the opportunities there were for Hospiscare to support her and her family. The Annual Review also looks at some of the numbers involved in their work, to help put it into perspective. That includes over £285,000 raised by their 17 charity shops, 13,967 visits to patients at home by their community nurses and bereavement support to 1,165 families.



But it's not just about looking back at the past year. Hospiscare also use the Annual Review to make a commitment about their plans for the coming year. They are always looking for opportunities to improve the level of care they can provide, and this month has seen the launch of their Mid Devon Day Hospice Appeal. They need to raise £250,000 to create a Day Hospice in Tiverton, to provide improved local care for patients and their families in Mid Devon. You can read more about the appeal here.

If you'd like to find out more about Hospiscare and their work you can visit their website: www.hospiscare.co.uk or follow them on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@Hospiscare.

You can see some of the previous work we've done with Hospiscare here, but if you want to know more I'd be really happy to have a chat, on 01392 248107.

Make Money, Not Waste: Communication strategy

Having a clear objective for a project essential. If you don't know what you want to achieve, how will you know of the project is a success?

Make Money, Not Waste is an annual event - a one-day workshop, aimed at food and drink producers in the South West - to help them take practical steps to becoming more sustainable businesses, and enjoy the benefits that will bring. The event is run by a number of organisations, including the Environment Agency, South West Food & Drink, Taste of the West and Envirowise, and this is the fifth year the event has been run.



We were brought into the project by the South West Design Programme, to develop a communication strategy for the event. The objective for this project was simple: increase attendance. The two previous events had attendance figures in the 30's. They wanted 70+.

So what did we do to achieve this objective? Well, the first thing was to look at the budget and plan a strategy that was affordable. We identified four activities which we felt were key to achieving the project objective.

1: Develop an identity
Although the event has been running for five years, there has been no consistency to the communication of it. We felt that a distinct, memorable identity was key to raising the profile of the event - not just for this year, but future events too. We wanted to lay a stable foundation for long-term success of the event. The first element of the identity to be created was the name for this years event: Practical solutions for practical problems. The Make Money, Not Waste series has been built upon a reputation for top quality advice, from experts in their field, so we wanted the name to reflect the value of the event to delegates. With the name in place, we created a logo that is practical and flexible. It's easy to apply to print and digital material, and flexible enough that it can be updated annually, to maintain recognition, and capture the date and title of each event.

2: Create a web presence
As a joint event there was no unique online destination for event information. There was also no opportunity to book online either. With a limited budget - and time - it wasn't possible to create something bespoke, so we turned to Eventbrite, and solved both of our challenges in one move. The Eventbrite site gave us an online destination to direct enquiries to, and the opportunity to take online bookings. It was easy to set up the site and we were able to add the identity to it as well, so Make Money, Not Waste could really take ownership of the space.


3: Combined online and offline campaign
To spread our net as wide as possible we wanted to use as many communication channels as we could, within our budget. So to get everything started we sent out an A5 flyer (above), to work in tandem with the emails that would follow. We created a simple, bold message, to prompt - and then remind - people to act. This was reinforced by the online campaign...

4: Direct mail campaign
We identified raising the profile of the event as key to increasing attendance, so we developed a direct mail campaign, to target the contacts and members that each of the event partners had. There were two elements to this: online and offline. The online campaign consisted of three staged mailings, sent via email; one before Christmas and two in the New Year. The aim of this was for each mailing to nudge (busy) recipients closer to making a commitment, and booking.


And the result?
There were 82 bookings for the event, hitting the target, and doubling the attendance of the two previous events. Of those bookings, 75% were made via the Eventbrite site.

So with a firm visual foundation in place, we hope Make Money, Not Waste can build on the strategy we created and implemented and continue to grow next year!


If you'd like to talk about creating a communication strategy, and the potential benefit to your organisation, call 01392 248107 or email jonathan@alderandalder.co.uk