We want to share how Impact’s identity has been enhanced over the years through our branding. By revisiting our branding, we have learned along the way that it has assisted and re-energised the growth of Impact over the last 25 years, helping us to expand our business and retain our position in the marketplace whilst staying true to our identity, values and business aims.
Our Brand Identity
The design of our identity is reflected in our choice of colour palette, font and layout which is used consistently in our logo, stationary, marketing material, signage and web page design, allowing our brand to be recognisable and coherent across all formats and media. On establishing the company in 1994, Shelly Rubinstein, Impact’s Chief Executive and a leading Chartered Psychologist, wanted to choose a brand name which clearly communicated her passion to have a positive impact on people’s lives. Shelly felt strongly about the need for equality and diversity in the workplace, and for everyone to be given opportunities to reach their full potential. The inspirational story of the suffragettes resonated with Shelly and she decided that the suffragette colours (purple reflecting loyalty and dignity, white for purity, and green for hope) would form the basis of the colour palette, which has been reflected in our brand identity for over a quarter of a century.
Shelly Rubinstein, Impact’s Chief Executive
Our Signage
As a Manchester-based company led by a woman, we are proud that our city is the home of one of the most iconic women’s rights activists in British history, Emmeline Pankhurst, and in December 2018 a new statue of Pankhurst was unveiled in Manchester to mark exactly 100 years since women won the right to vote in the general election. We believe that our branding colours especially resonate with this historical centenary milestone and our own recognition of the suffragette plight.
The statue of Emmeline Pankhurst unveiled in St. Peter’s Square, Manchester.
What is the history of the Impact brand?
Since 1994, Impact has had two brand revamps – one in 2009 and one in 2017. Impact has remained our name for the last 25 years, which reflects the continued positive impact our services have had on people’s lives and the strength of our branding name as it has endured the test of time. The inspiration of the colours have remained key to our branding as their meaning and associations provide us with an opportunity to successfully reflect our core values and business aims with Psychology at the heart.
Our logo reflects our identity and brand, symbolising the business as a whole.
2009 Brand Revamp
In 2009, the brand was refreshed to reflect its current position and its aspirations for future growth. A comprehensive marketing and business development strategy was developed with the aim of developing into new markets, such as other public sector markets and the private sector. Key to the success of the strategy was the development of a refreshed identity that reflects the business and helps it standout against competitors. A professional design was applied across all marketing platforms which was fresh, modern and forward looking and gave enhanced credibility to our business. The original company name of ‘Impact Consulting Business Psychologists Ltd.’ was changed to ‘Impact. Consulting Psychologists’ with the emphasis being placed on ‘Consulting Psychologists’, as this reflected our main USP being evidence-based Psychologists. The colours of purple, green and white were modernised to a warmer palette to reflect our values of ‘warmth’ and ‘openness’ and caring about how people feel, whilst also creating a cleaner and fresher look to reflect our scientific values.
2017 Brand Revamp
In 2017, our team had a ‘review process’ where we discussed and reflected on Impact as a business, what we are aiming to achieve and what we stand for. The outcome of this revealed that our values remained the same, honesty, warmth and scientific, but our branding needed to be reviewed to reflect our passion and vibrancy for what we do at Impact. Therefore, the aim of the rebrand was to inject more warmth and personality into the brand and ‘humanise’ Impact even more. In an interview conducted with Shelly at the time of the rebrand, she said, “I started to think that the personality of the business needed to shine through the branding more. As a team, we have real excitement for developing people and organisations and we wanted our brand to reflect this.” As a result, a new design was created to give us the ‘wow’ factor. The colours remained rooted in the original colours, but were revamped into a more energising green, a warmer purple and cream to reflect more of our enthusiasm for what we do. The circle graphic is not only vibrant and eye catching but it also symbolises our scientific approach, ideas and collaboration. The name was refreshed again in 2017 to ‘Impact – Psychology for Business’ to send a more explicit message about what we do, we are evidence-based psychologists who provide psychology for your business.
A new website was launched to reflect the new branding and designed to deliver greater clarity, and simplicity, so that it is easy to navigate and understand what we do. The tone of voice has evolved to become friendlier but keeping the academic rigour, experience and expertise of the Impact team. Our new URL of www.workwithimpact.co.uk was chosen because it represents our core purpose – you work better with impact, your work has impact and impacts on your work by working with us. Our pillars have also been refined from ‘Assessing Talent, Building Leadership, Coaching Performance, and Uniting Teams’ to ‘Performance, Leadership, Talent and Change’ to make it easier for people to find what they are looking for, with the business benefits clearly outlined. To reflect our belief in sharing knowledge and learning, we are continuing to share our evidence-based articles on our ‘News and Views’ page.
Our website, www.workwithimpact.co.uk
Impact will continue to bring business psychology expertise into the heart of organisations. We are grateful to have worked with a variety of industries and prestigious clients across the UK. We look forward to continuing this work, to continue growing our relationships with current and new clients and collaborating with others to promote what we believe in, helping to grow organisations by releasing the full potential of their people.
If you want to discover how working with Impact can benefit you, your people and your organisation please get in touch: [email protected]