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Refreshing a trusted global brand story
Brand & narrative development
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Research & insights
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Audience research and insights
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Brand audit and ecosystem analysis
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The client
Habitat for Humanity:
One of the world’s most trusted non-profits, operating in more than 70 countries. After decades of expanding access to decent, affordable homes, it needed a brand story that spoke to the full complexity and diversity of its work and people.
Key stats
45,858
Individuals surveyed
12
Focus groups
23
Countries polled
The challenge
Habitat for Humanity is renowned as a home builder, particularly in the US. This is a core part of Habitat’s story - but it’s not the whole story.
Habitat tasked 89up with refreshing its brand story and positioning to be truly global and to encompass its many strands of work: including policy, advocacy, research and innovation, equity and climate resilience. We needed a brand story that resonated both with new and existing supporters, and helped Habitat build strategic partnerships around the world.
Crucially, we also needed to bring Habitat’s supporters and internal stakeholders on the journey, using their experience and expertise to inform our work.
The solution
To refresh this trusted brand, 89up embarked on a year-long research project covering 52 countries in every global region. We began with discovery through stakeholder stakeholder interviews, benchmarking analysis and audience mapping of similar organisations, and analysis of global audience data in 52 countries to understand Habitat’s core appeal, it’s positioning in the sector and develop hypotheses for new global audiences.
With this baseline, 89up commissioned bespoke polling in 23 countries spanning every global region. We conducted cluster analysis of the results and created 10 personas of Habitat’s global audiences, representing 90% of the global population. 89 then developed potential narratives that would resonate with these groups, which was refined with 12 global focus groups representing key personas and existing supporters. We validated this with a final round of quantitative narrative testing in an additional 5 countries.
Throughout the project, 89up implemented a multi-level, global stakeholder consultation process. This included multiple touchpoints with three ‘Kitchen Cabinet’ groups representing Habitat’s senior leaders, workshops with global communications teams, one-on-one interviews with key stakeholders and opportunities for input.
The impact
89up is now in the final stages of delivering a new brand story guide and creative platform. Designed for ease of use across teams and borders, it sets out Habitat’s core winning ground, key audiences, story of self, story of work, and practical deep dives into how to communicate about complex areas of work.
The new guide encompasses Habitat’s diverse, global presence, and the movement they are building to ensure everyone has a decent place to live, supports Habitat’s new strategy and pushing the organisation into its next stage of life.
