Brand isn't a dirty word

There has never been more competition for attention in EU politics, and what's likely to happen under Trump will only increase the pressure. The days of low visibility orgs that rely solely on connections over drinks are over - it's time to get your brand right.

Earlier this month, a report from Institut Bruxellois de Statistique et d’Analyse found that almost 40% of the city's population does not have a Belgian passport. 20 years ago, that number was 26%. Brussels has become a global hub of migrants, one of 20 major cities that one-in-five of all global migrants call home. And Brussels is unusually full with migrants, second only to Dubai in terms of proportion of foreign origin residents,* as shown in this wonderful data viz story by Karim Douieb .

Much of this migration is driven by the EU. Nine of the top ten origin countries for that foreign born population are in the EU, with France leading the way. Brussels is home to most of the EU institutions and it attracts many people** who want to work in or around EU politics. In the last decade alone, the number of registered EU lobbyists has more than doubled, for example, and that figure only represents a fraction of the whole - many people working in the Bubble aren't directly meeting with policymakers, so don't need to be registered.

One of the themes of my articles over the past two years has been the inexorable rise in important of EU politics***.

I have talked about it in terms of the increasing burden on the European Commission, the renewed competition of media groups vying for the attention of Brussels readers, and in terms of staffing needs for think tanks and NGOs looking to compete in the marketplace of ideas.

Now, don't get me wrong, there's still a long way to go. Brussels is a long way from becoming another DC, and EU politics is still painfully parochial and obsessed with in-group signaling. But there is no doubt we have seen national governments take a back seat on more issues, ceding space to Brussels, while the Commission's role as de facto global regulator has become table stakes for negotiations and strategic planning around the world.

All that means not only are there more eyes watching what's going here than ever before, there are also more people attempting to impact decision making than ever before.

Which gets me on to the importance of brand.

There are thousands of similar organisations operating in Brussels. Think tanks, activist groups, networks, NGOs, trade associations, E-TIPs, consultancies, law firms etc... They have different motivations and might look very different up close, but they all tend to interact with policymakers in similar ways: through reports, through meetings, through events.

I think it can be very easy to forget this when you're inside one of these organisations. The tendency to tunnel vision onto your specific file and your narrow area of interest is widespread - how could anybody mistake you for a different organisation?

But put yourself in the shoes of an MEP or Policy Officer and you can easily imagine it.

They get barraged with event invites that look and sound very similar. Those events (typically panels) are in the same five or six locations around the EU institutions, featuring many of the same voices who are focused on whatever the particular issue is. During the event, you are shown a very serious report that has a picture of an institutional building on the front and a very long, precise title with an even longer subheading that some poor Comms person wasn't able to delete.

They take the report back to their office and put it on a pile of very similar reports - they're going to get around to actually going through those sometime soon. Then they open their email to see sixteen newsletters covering similar updates, written in a similar style, before going to the next meeting with a bunch of people dressed in the same blue suits.

It's incredibly easy for all your effort, all that money and time and brain power, to merge into one undifferentiated mush. Why take that risk?

Stop feeling so squeamish about the B word

There has long been a discomfort about the concept of 'brand' in the non profit space. I've been at multiple NGOs where people refused to even use the word.

Brand seen as a dirty word, something used by big corporations to sell consumer goods rather than something that matters for value driven work. Or it's dismissed as focusing on "the sizzle over the steak" - a distraction from the real work (which inevitably involves producing long technical reports).

This is something our sector needs to get over.

If you care about influence, or reputation, or building trust in your organisation, then you care about brand.

Here's the reality: most of the decisionmakers you want to influence have never heard of you or who you work for. Every meeting begins with some explanation, some context setting, a mini elevator pitch that is designed to convince that decisionmaker that your input is valuable. Think tanks and NGOs typically don't come heavily armed in this area - we don't tend to bring lots of members/voters and certainly no economic impact. Our number one benefit is typically our reputation. That is something to be guarded and cultivated, but of course it is also something that needs to be communicated clearly.

I have been very aware of this issue working in the first wave of Clean Air Task Force staff in Europe and now of course at the Centre for Future Generations (CFG) , which is just over a year old - almost all of our interactions have been first impressions. But even when I was working for the largest PR firm in the world most people I met had never heard the name. People live in their own worlds - they really aren't thinking about what else is out there most of the time.

A strong brand will help you reduce that introduction period at the start of each meeting and give you more time to talk substance. It will help get your papers and reports read because decisionmakers can pick out your colours and photography and art direction from the stack of other reports. It helps people remember that your organisation was the source behind a graph or an infographic or a quote.

Amongst many other things, brand makes you memorable.

That alone is worth investing in as the international Brussels Bubble grows and becomes more competitive. Remember, there aren't more MEPs or Commissioners; there's just more people trying to get to them.

Lessons learned from our (re)branding process

You may have seen that CFG recently went through a rebrand, although I might better describe it as a branding in the first place.

The reasons for this were varied. There wasn't a proper brandbook or established templates to begin with, which created issues when collaborating and for quality control. The team was dissatisfied with the look and feel, as well as with the website. There was also considerable discussion about the name - people found it hard to remember and everybody always used the four letter version rather than the whole name, which didn't help with memorability.

It seemed like a good time to refresh everything before we were long-established and had accrued more opportunity costs.

• Get your brief right. Be specific and do not leave much up to interpretation. A clear brief will come when you've decided what problems you most urgently need to solve - focus on getting internal alignment on that. Don't try to overspecify the answers - that's what agencies are there for and (spoiler alert) they're better at branding than you and your team of policy wonks.
• Involve the team. The worst possible outcome of a rebrand involves a) the production of a fantastic new brand, perhaps one that even wins design awards, but b) staff members hate and refuse to use. You want to rebrand every ten years, at most, and you don't want to have to police use of fonts and templates and images and voice for that whole time - involve your team, do internal workshops, incorporate their inputs and give them ownership.
• Set ambitious targets. If there isn't a hard target to aim for - in our case it was the flagship event - the branding process can go on and on and on. It is a deep rabbit hole. The problem with that is you will only really find out a bunch of things when your team is living with the new brand day in and day out - that's when the gaps start to appear. So set yourself a deadline for launch and a deadline for dealing with the little unexpected rough edges or tweaks your staff will pick up along the way.
• Focus on voice and values, then let the visuals spring from there. A lot of people think 'brand' means 'a logo'. This is completely backwards. It's a bit like trying to write the Executive Summary of your research report at the start, before you have any data or analysis or recommendations. The core of your brand is how it is embodied by your people - it's shared values, aspirations, points of reference, a tone of voice. Get that right and then move on from there.

You can read an overview of CFG's rebrand here. I've already had amazing feedback about the name, the look and feel, and even the brand campaign that we launched with.

I will sign off by thanking the amazing team at Cast from Clay who worked with us seamlessly on the rebrand, as well as the folk at Bump who managed to realise that brand IRL just days after it was launched.

This is part of a monthly series aimed at examining the underlying narratives of European affairs, with a healthy dose of media criticism along the way. Read the previous article here.

These are personal takes and do not represent the position of my employer.

*Note the stats from IBSA do not count anyone who has gone onto obtain Belgian citizenship (even if they also hold a foreign passport), unlike the figures used in Karim's data viz - hence the discrepancy.

**Including myself, my wife and my daughter - all of us would be counted in those IBSA figures, despite my daughter being born right here in Brussels. A bit of statistical complexity in population figures that Trump may be ushering in across the pond.

***I don't see any reason for this trend to change, despite the mood of doom and gloom surrounding all things Europe at the moment. With the US looking set to become more isolated - and its political elite circling the wagons - investors and funders on the outside of Trump's inner circle need to find influence elsewhere. For those motivated by the climate and clean energy gains under Biden, the best option for continuing that momentum will lie in making Europe competitive - without that, there's no reason not to reverse any perceived Democrat wins.