ITV launches on-screen branding by Red Bee Media

In its latest bid to compete in the multichannel television market, ITV next week launches a major brand overhaul, with on-screen logos, graphics and idents designed by Red Bee Media.

The new look was unveiled this week by Clare Salmon, the broadcaster’s director of marketing and commercial strategy, after a year in research and development. It will launch across ITV’s four entertainment channels – ITV1, 2, 3 and 4 – and news programmes next Monday.

‘We hope that the brand will be relevant for at least the next five years and some time beyond that. We are preparing ITV for a multichannel, multiplatform world,’ says Salmon.

‘Research shows that, unlike the BBC, people aren’t quite sure what the personality of ITV is; they couldn’t say this is the reason I lock into this channel. But they see it as empathetic, warm and down to earth.’ The rationale behind Red Bee Media’s creative executions draws heavily on attitudinal market research conducted by media agency MindShare and a study into ITV’s brand by advertising agency M&C Saatchi.

This research-based approach led to the creation of six audience segmentations and tightly defined channel personalities which will target different viewer types and feed to different advertisers. Red Bee Media’s idents translate these personalities into a distinct visual style for each channel.

ITV1 idents show a series of scenes relating to emotions, both positive and negative, and ITV2 is visually rich, evoking ‘fun and excess’. ITV3’s screen style is more sedate and filmic, promoting the channel as a place of storytelling, while ITV4’s ‘collision of opposites’ approach aims to alter male viewers’ opinions about ITV.

‘[The perception] has almost been that the other channels are derivative of ITV1. Now we need to present a family of channels and demonstrate the role of each within the family,’ says ITV marketing director David Pemsel.

ITV REBRAND:

January 2005

Clare Salmon starts as ITV marketing director

February 2005

Salmon brings in M&C Saatchi to review the ITV brand

May 2005

Red Bee Media appointed to design work after credentials pitch against incumbent Bruce Dunlop Associates, Lambie-Nairn, Dunning Eley Jones and English & Pockett (DW 5 May 2005)

November 2005

First work from Red Bee Media unveiled in ITV4 launch (DW 27 October 2005)

January 2006

Full suite of channel identities goes to air

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