County Council services with marketing identities

Differentiating your service | Separate marketing identities | Applying for approval | Criteria for establishing a new marketing identity | Information required

Hampshire County Council is our one and only brand. To the public we must always be represented as Hampshire County Council, so departmental or service logos are unnecessary.

In some exceptional circumstances, there may be an interest in promoting our services under distinct names or logos – which we call “marketing identities". While this may be unavoidable for a few projects, in other cases the use of marketing identities does more harm than good.

Evidence from MORI surveys consistently shows there is widespread ignorance about what the County Council actually does. Use of additional marketing identities only adds to the confusion which will inevitably reduce the County Council's visibility. This makes it even harder to get across positive messages about the good work we are doing.

Ultimately, we should not be surprised if the people of Hampshire do not support or value us, if they do not know what services we provide for them. The best approach is therefore to promote as many services as possible under the County Council name and logo, so that we present ourselves as one organisation, with one voice.

In most situations your requirements should be achieved by following the advice given on this page.

However, where there are exceptional circumstances, these must be discussed with and approved by Corporate Communications so it is advisable to involve the team at the earliest opportunity.

Differentiating your service and raising its profile

If your objectives require you to promote your service or department, campaign or project, there are ways of achieving this without expense and dilution of the corporate brand by creating a new logo.

Consider the communications mediums available to you – are you making the most of what’s available for your budget?
Create a distinct visual look through the consistent use of layout, design and colour throughout all your communications. For example, County Treasurer’s Department material is always produced using the colours orange and green, so is easily recognisable.
Headlines and copy (written text) can be themed and applied consistently. Use of a strapline could be considered.
Make sure you identify and prioritise key messages important to your business objectives and your target market.

Please note: a logo is a visual mark consisting of a drawing and/or lettering that uniquely identifies an organisation, individual, initiative or publicity campaign for as long as it exists, and is used repeatedly or in isolation from the creative design.

Headline text or strap lines are not considered a logo unless they are removed from the original context and used in isolation as a visual mark to represent the campaign. For example, the current corporate strategy poster features the words “I’ve helped ...” in a particular style. If this was used to represent the strategy in a report for example, this would be treating it as a logo, which it is not.

Separate marketing identities

A separate marketing identity is the use of a logo and creative design applied in the context of the corporate brand.

The corporate identity must still be applied and the guidelines must still be adhered to alongside the application of another logo. However, there are some exceptions to this. The rules on these are provided throughout the how to apply the logo section. Services with marketing identities that are working in partnership with other organisations must also read the section on partnerships.

To see a list of marketing identities currently approved please contact Corporate Communications.

Applying for approval of a new marketing identity

Please take time to read the criteria that Corporate Communications will consider when approving the creation of a new marketing identity. These will be taken into account when you supply the information required for the Corporate Communciations Team to make an assessment. Please note that the criteria provide a structure to the assessment process and are not necessarily a blueprint for a new marketing identity.

Criteria for establishing a new marketing identity

A clear purpose for establishing a new marketing identity:

contribution to achieving departmental objectives
clarification and increased impact of key messages to:

convey a specific message to a community in a short period of time
address a traditionally low response from a market
help combat poor awareness and understanding

relevance to the target market

to clarify a logical situation
not to address internal needs

increasing competitiveness
support for overall corporate identity

a new marketing identity does not replace the need to implement the corporate identity

all other possible routes and communications best practice have been exploited.

Information required

To make the assessment process as clear and quick as possible please provide:

a brief background on the service or project
a description of the proposed identity and how it will fit within departmental and corporate identities
examples of where and how this will be used
an explanation of how the new marketing identity meets the criteria specified above
any supporting documents you feel are appropriate.