Challenge

In late 2015, we started working with the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants on articulating its new brand positioning. 

This led to a long-term programme of work including creating a brand narrative, developing a tone of voice, training teams, creating a messaging framework and rewriting key pieces of collateral. 

For a brand to really be able to transform an organisation, it has to become relevant – and used – by every team working for it. Indeed, a criticism of “brand” is that it’s all too often something that belongs to head office and makes little difference to people working in the field. Which is a mistake – because the front-line teams are often the very people who have most contact with customers and potential customers.

So we and the ACCA brand and marketing teams felt it was important to align all sales materials with the organisation’s new brand. The new sales toolkits had to be relevant and useable in all of ACCA’s markets – which span Sub-Saharan Africa, most of Asia, the Middle East, Australia and New Zealand.

What we did

We created a number of toolkits for different ACCA teams to use. For example, the purpose of one toolkit was to persuade more learning providers like colleges and universities to partner with ACCA for its finance and accountancy courses. We felt that to achieve this, the new brand positioning needed to be at the heart of all future conversations with potential partners.

However, we were aware that to do their job, the sales toolkits also had to feel local enough to be relevant to prospects. In other words, they couldn’t just be shiny brochures that felt too generic.

So to create the new toolkits, we worked closely with key stakeholders in all the territories where ACCA operates. Based on their input, we developed a core structure which tells the story of ACCA simply and compellingly. This is then localised using case studies.

Collateral for the kits includes a client information pack, slide deck, flip cards and documentation explaining how to use it.

Results

ACCA sales teams now have tools and materials that feel energetic and human. When they talk to prospective clients and members, they reinforce the brand messages and consistently express ACCA’s personality. 

This means that from the very beginning of their relationship with ACCA, potential clients and members have a very clear understanding of what the organisation is, what it stands for – and what it’s out to achieve. 

Initial feedback from sales teams is that it’s already much easier to talk about ACCA and to get potential clients interested in and excited about what it might be like to work with ACCA.

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