Creating a powerful, flexible master brand

uberbrand worked closely with TAFE NSW to bring the disparate organisation together under one brand, a single culture, and a single vision. From strategy to visualisation, creative to activation in market, uberbrand partnered with TAFE to bring the vision to life.

Strategic positioning

The marketplace for education is in flux. Digital disruption, generational change, deregulation and access to government funding all affect the way consumers go about skilling and qualifying themselves for contemporary working environments.

For TAFE NSW, this was placing pressure on their relevance. In response, the NSW Government decided to integrate 10 autonomous institutes into a single multi-campus, billion-dollar entity – One TAFE. Coming together to form Australia’s largest educator, TAFE NSW would now serve around 500,000 students.

As an additional part of this strategy, TAFE NSW needed to shift perceptions from what was traditionally seen as a “Plan B” to a “Plan A”. This would help TAFE NSW reestablish relevance and competitiveness within the current education marketplace.

To achieve their goal, the brand needed to be appealing to not only its typical audience, but to a much broader market.

This included consumer audiences of:
• School leavers
• Up-skillers
• International students
• Indigenous Australians

As well as business to business audiences of:
• SME’s
• Enterprises
• Government departments

Meanwhile, TAFE NSW also had to engage effectively with internal staff, as well as partners and the broader educational ecosystem. So, the challenge was to appeal to all the sub-demographics across a now vast audience base.

A reinvigorated brand identity

A core task was to create a brand identity that not only shifted perception but was extensible across a vast target audience. The point of departure was the question: How do we create a brand identity for TAFE NSW that would galvanise the community and motivate change?

A strong brand personality came to life. An empowering visual identity was created under the big idea – “Be Ambitious”. This would communicate a sense of opportunity enabled by TAFE NSW, with the flexibility to speak to each audience personally, while maintaining continuity.

The master brand applied dynamic language, bold tone, vibrant colours and an exciting, independent imagery style. Messaging utilised the verbal device of “Be –”, such as “Be whatever you want to be”, supported by aspirational photography. In this way, the consumer and their unique needs were engaged directly, while placing TAFE NSW into the picture.

The bold and dynamic master identity was designed for high impact and cut through. This framework could then be extrapolated to meaningfully reach and communicate across markets – with specific focus on consumers, indigenous, international, SME, digital and enterprise audiences respectively. Sub-brand identities borrowed from the master brand identity, applying different and, at the same time, connected elements and language. The outcome was a unified feel, yet appropriately differentiated entities.

Brand activation and reach

The brand and identities we’re rolled out across all touchpoints and integrated into advertising and marketing campaigns. Key storytelling activities via video, website and landing pages and traditional high impact TVC were implemented, with outdoor and transit placement for the master brand.

This master brand was applied to acquisition advertising, using programmatic reach and messaging, based on consumer data. Separate campaigns we’re initiated for sub-brands, according to the key audiences that they targeted. For example, the TAFE NSW Enterprise sub-brand was placed into specific trade media to reach a B2B audience.

Activations such as participation at Vivid were implemented to showcase the value of TAFE NSW as an educator and the prospects available to its students. Advertising and activity encompassed the entire marketing funnel, from hero content through to lead nurturing, retargeting and drip email campaigns.

The results

The new brand and family of sub-brands helped TAFE NSW achieve its strategic and tactical objectives. Key areas of Brand Performance have been mapped as follows:

Awareness – 49% increase in TAFE NSW brand searches
Health – 47% increase in share of voice
Acquisition – increase of 1 million consumers studying with TAFE NSW

Brand loyalty experienced a marked improvement as well, with sentiments of TAFE NSW shifting strongly in a more positive direction. This was demonstrated by such testimonials as the following by a potential student, who said the new brand was “inspiring, feels cool, like Apple”.