Help the Aged shops get a hand from Bissett Adams

Bisset Adams has been appointed this week by Help the Aged to create a new retail identity for the charity.

The consultancy won the work on the basis of a credentials pitch and previous work the consultancy has done for the charity’s call centre, against ‘several’ rivals.

The work will involve both 2D and 3D work. The team working on the 2D aspects will be led by Dan Barber, head of the 2D department. The Bisset Adams team that will work on the 3D aspects has not yet been decided.

The brief is to bring Help the Aged into line with charities, such as Oxfam, that use their shops as a communication tool. Help the Aged has 376 shops in the UK.

Barber comments, ‘The point is to communicate that Help the Aged isn’t just a charity shop and to bring to the public eye more of what it does. We will be looking at the competition, even though it is weird to think of other charity shops as competition.’

Bisset Adams together with Help the Aged will choose a pilot store in which to develop the new concept, while also looking at a variety of other stores to make sure that the concept is flexible enough to deal with the charity’s different premises. The pilot store is likely to be out of London.

Early ideas include introducing posters in shops, possibly based on a quarterly theme fitting in with the charity’s advertising campaigns. Bisset Adams is also looking at the possibility of introducing computers in shops through which customers can access Help the Aged’s website.

Barber says, ‘Accessibility is a key issue. I don’t think that your average person knows the services that Help the Aged provides, and an older person wouldn’t necessarily have a PC at home.’