WRVS members review branding

The Women’s Royal Voluntary Service is carrying out extensive research into the organisation’s branding and corporate identity with its 115 000 volunteers, in an effort to raise its profile.

London design group Beresfords has been appointed to run courses about brand architecture and its relevance to the service, which was established as the WVS in 1938 to recruit volunteers for civil defence.

WRVS director of communications Louise Darby says volunteers will be canvassed on all aspects of the present corporate identity. This adorns meals-on-wheels vans and volunteers’ clothing as well as corporate stationery.

“It wouldn’t be right to just change it. It is about getting everyone to understand what branding is and encouraging people to see what the brand means to them and stakeholders,” she explains.

The organisation’s existing logo, which Coley Porter Bell developed in 1993, “looked at bringing the logo into the latter part of the 20th century,” according to Darby.

“We will put a paper together by next March and then spend six to nine months holding more focus groups with volunteers. But we are not ruling out the possibility that things will stay the same,” she adds.