Facing a potential loss of customers due to the NSW LGA amalgamations, we worked with the SWM team to rebrand, reposition, and re-energise the organisation from a customer position to a position of strength.
In 2013 Cuckoo successfully tendered for a contract with Statewide Mutual to undertake a strategic review of their operations. Soon after, they engaged us to deliver our recommended brand strategy project and following that we were engaged as their full service marketing strategy team, a relationship that lasted over 3 years. It is a testament to the value we bring to our clients and quality of the work that we do. After 20 years of operation, Statewide Mutual’s board came to us late 2013 to confess they had never focused on marketing and they wanted to change that. Their brief was broad – to conduct a strategic assessment aimed at improving their image and profile. After a thorough assessment that included interviews with key stakeholders, a review of business vision, strategy and objectives, a brand audit, and competitor analysis, we recommended a full brand strategy project be conducted, which the board approved and we delivered in 2014. We started with an extensive quantitative research project to unearth member views and motivations. Armed with this data, we began work on target market analysis and profiling, brand positioning and key message definition. Our investigations had unearthed a dull brand in dire need of attention and communications requiring immediate improvement. The board of Statewide Mutual were right behind us and we began to implement our recommendations. We launched the fresh brand image, logo and a tagline that reflected the underlying values of the organisation. We created brand guidelines to ensure consistency of application and rolled out MS Word and PowerPoint templates throughout the organisation. Uniforms, stationery and merchandise built excitement and ownership amongst the team for the new branding. In tandem, we relaunched the client’s redundant e-newsletter to address the communications challenge and created an entirely new website that was seamlessly integrated with an existing extranet portal. We created a rolling 18 month marketing plan including launch campaign, public relations, events, sponsorship, communications, social media and advertising components; a format they continue to implement. Thanks to the strong foundations on which the brand was established, we were in a great position to progressively refine the strategy. We periodically released an 18-month plan to guide integrated marketing activity towards evolving objectives and dynamic industry conditions. We kept our finger on the pulse of target market views with regular benchmarking surveys to member councils, feeding results back into strategic plans and using the learnings to guide future activity. Let’s face it: being Australia’s second largest self-insurance pool was something we weren’t going to let happen.
