We’ve been hearing a lot about active brands lately – the kind of brand that is ‘blurring the lines between identity, branding, advertising and communications’(Michael Johnson).

It’s important that these active brands are backed by solid strategy that’s aligned to the medium-long term goals of the charity.

When we worked with Bowel Cancer UK we helped them work out where they fitted in a competitive area, as one of several bowel cancer charities.

We heard their outrage at all the unnecessary deaths, felt their passionate ambition ‘to take a killer off the streets’. We helped them uncover the central defining feature of their organisation: their focus on early diagnosis – saving lives. This is what set them apart from the others. This is what their positioning, and their brand is built around.

Things always look so simple in hindsight. Picking out the rallying ‘we can’ that’s embedded right in the name itself, we created a visual system that works hard and actively for the charity .

Being so utterly linked both to the campaigning and awareness-raising strategy of the charity, being in itself such an upbeat and hopeful message, and being eternally useful as a message to motivate supporters and reach out to new ones, it’s an identity designed with longevity in mind.

We love the Cystic Fibrosis Trust rebrand and reaction to it has seemed so far to be good. Clearly awareness and understanding of the disease is low, and that’s something the Trust want to address.

It will be interesting to watch this newest example of an ‘active’ brand evolve over time, as awareness of the condition grows, as priorities shift, as fundraising or organisational awareness become more important. In times like these, ‘active’ charity brands should be active in more ways than one – completely aligned to an organisation’s long-term goals and working hard for the organisation at every level.