UKTV tickled pink by BBC Broadcast

Digital TV network UKTV is to launch a two-day channel celebrating Britain’s mothers, with an identity created by BBC Broadcast.

UKTV Mums will take over UKTV Style on Mother’s Day Weekend, 20 and 21 March, and will broadcast a selection of network programmes selected in a survey of 1000 mothers.

Channel executive for UKTV Food Gareth Williams, who is overseeing the event, says it is part of UKTV’s campaign to be recognised as a coherent network, rather than a series of ‘separate enterprises’. Last month, Dunning Eley Jones rebranded the network, introducing a new logo and the UKTV prefix across its stable of nine channels (DW 5 February).

Williams says he briefed the designers at BBC Broadcast to create a ‘stylish, on-brand’ UKTV Mums identity. ‘We wanted something with a fun, upbeat colour that brought in a feeling of celebrating mothers,’ he explains.

According to BBC Broadcast design director Paula Williams, the channel’s identity features a ‘bold’ pink colour scheme and a typographical roll-call of real mother’s names (pictured).

This supports creative group Karmarama’s strategy for the channel and strapline, ‘UK TV Mums. A two-day channel for the people who really run the country’, and is easily tailored for use across UKTV’s other channels, she adds.

The entire UKTV network will, for two days, air the BBC Broadcast-designed identity before shows featured on UKTV Mums.

This will be adapted, however, to include individual channels’ brand names and colours – and will highlight mothers’ names that are relevant to programming, such as Anna Broccoli for UKTV Food, Gareth Williams explains.

BBC Broadcast won the appointment, which also involved directing and producing a trio of launch trailers written by Karmarama, in January. The work was worth a £50 000 fee to the group.