New Oxfam brand: vacation from the real world

It looks like the brand shamans are at work again. This time, they got their hands on Oxfam Great Britain. With typical results.

The Intelligent Giving blog takes a look at it in Hooray for Oxfam! I'm not exactly saying hooray about this bizarre travesty.

First, I should say I admire the fact that they opened up their "new look" to comments at New-look Oxfam - tell us what you think!. Here's where you see first-hand that everyone is an expert. And while I'd rather have people talking about what a nonprofit does than how they look, engagement is good. Another thing they've done that I think quite nice is a sort of tagline they use here and there: Get rich quick. Give. Brilliant, really. Donor-centered and true.

Now the ugly stuff. They've fallen into a couple of typical errors that seem to be endemic among newly branded nonprofits:

1. Hard-to-read design

Like so many others new brands, Oxfam's has chosen to favor a saturated color palette, especially colored type over colored backgrounds.

Special note to Branding Design Wizards: That's hard to read. It's hard to read in print; it's hard to read online. And what's hard to read doesn't get read.

Please -- have mercy on bifocal-wearing duffers like myself (and everyone else, really) by sticking to the design basics. The purpose of design is to enhance and clarify the message, not to obscure it by making it hard to read.

Why do the Brand Shamans always do this? Did they all go to the same Bad Design School? Or have they been told "nobody reads anyway," so you might as well design for looks without reference to readability? Or are they hiding something?

2. Reducing the message to abstractions

What's the deal? Oxfam does all kinds of very cool, very specific things to fight hunger and poverty. But when it comes to messaging, the new brand wants to reduce it all to symbolic actions against symbolic problems.

This isn't unique to Oxfam's new brand. It happens nearly every time the Brand Geniuses touch a nonprofit brand. You'd think they're allergic to reality.

A freakish example of the abstractionism at work is a TV spot created for the new Oxfam brand (you can see it here on YouTube if you want a laugh).

In the real world, donors give actual money in real amounts to help organizations do real things that have actual outcomes in the lives of real people. In Oxfam's new brand world, people vomit white stuff at animated conceptual words like "injustice," and this is how the world becomes a better place -- or at least one covered with rainbows. (I'm not being silly -- that's what you see in the ad.)

Maybe the urge toward unreadable design and the urge to make the message abstract are facets of the same problem: They don't like the real world. They want to hide it.

Maybe that feels good to some people. But it's not going to motivate actual donors.

So if the Brand Shamans come sniffing around, offering a super-cool new brand -- just say no!

Technorati Tags: fundraising, Oxfam

Comments

[Adam Rothwell]

I see your point here, but I think the really interesting thing about Oxfam's re-brand is the fact that it's not suicidally depressing. The very fact that this well-known outfit is willing to promote the positive side of giving should be, I think, applauded.

So they got the colours wrong and the TV ad is a bit weird. Fair enough. But the idea that giving can make you happy - and that charities don't need to make you feel dreadful in order to give - gets me pretty excited. In the UK at least, it doesn't happen enough.

Adam, Intelligent Giving

[Ian]

RE: Point #2 (Reducing the message to abstractions)

Couldn’t agree more. Obviously an attempt is being made to make Oxfam hip [read “heavy youth appeal”] and separate the brand from other international development organizations.

The net result is a commercial that is innovative, mildly entertaining but unfortunately…. largely ineffective.

To your point, the number one problem here is NO EMOTION…..The spot does not move the viewer, or for that matter even hint at the depth of the problem. And to add insult to injury it doesn’t even provide a mechanism by which the viewer can respond.

It’s also interesting to note that on YouTube many of the target “youth” are commenting on the music track and not the injustice the spot was intended to communicate. Are our youth more socially aware as a result of this commercial? Debatable. Can they “name that tune” in three seconds? Probably.

So what does it all come down to? Objectives. If the goal is to get young people talking about the hip music Oxfam uses – then perhaps the “brand shamans” have succeeded.

If the goal is to position Oxfam as a relevant international development agency and acquire new donors…well perhaps Tim Burton can volunteer his services next time!

Ian French, President and Executive Creative Director
Northern Lights Direct Response
www.nldrtv.com

[Cat Laine]

I think another thing to realize is that many British ad agencies push ideas very differently from your typical American ad agency. American ad agencies focus on the obvious. This soap cleans very well. British agencies figure you're not an idiot. You know what soap does and this brand has been #1 in UK for the last 50 years. They are not even going to mention bubbles. Rather they are going to be cheeky/witty and make you laugh.

Oxfam is probably the most well known charity in the UK. It has a thrift or fair trade goods shop on every High Street in every major city and many smaller cities. Everyone has at least a vague idea of what they do and a sense that they do it very well. They don't have to mention it every single time because that's boring and therefore not particular sticky. So every once in a while they are cheeky and make you laugh.

I'll agree with you though that that ad is very weird in a nightmare before Christmas way. I'll remember it, but I think it's creepy.

Here is another Oxfam advert with Helen Mirren and Helena Bonham Carter:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t20C7LMSCTs&NR=1

[Janice]

I just watched that ad and yikes! Now I'm really confused as to what to do, as it takes so much time to really be aware of everything and involved with fighting injustice. Injustice, of all overwhelmingly huge and abstract things. Completely the opposite of Malaria No More's call to donate $10 for a bed net (not the exact words, but something like that). Anyhow, a good reminder that sometimes advice about poetry (more concrete and less abstract = the best way to connect) applies to other things as well.