The challenge

After developing a new set of organisational values, Girlguiding wanted to see how they matched up to the public’s perception of the charity.

“We know there are common misconceptions or traditional ideas about what we do,” says Marketing Officer Ruth Stone. “We wanted to test this with actual data rather than making assumptions.” 

What we did

Using our Brand Attributes Monitor, which surveys 3,000 members of the public, Girlguiding was able to test which values were particularly resonating with their audiences – and which ones needed to be emphasised in their communications.

Our impact

The research showed that Girlguiding was currently the charity most associated with being ‘empowering’, one of the charity’s core values. “We created an infographic with this fact to use on social media,” says Ruth. “It’s nice to be able to share clear, good news.

“The brand research also flags up attributes that are important to us, that aren’t resonating as strongly or that the public aren’t as aware of. We can use this insight to shape our communications so they reinforce these messages.”

As well as using the Brand Attributes Monitor, Girlguiding is signed up to the Families Insight and the Charity Awareness Monitor, and has commissioned two bespoke pieces of audience research. Ruth says that all of this research is shared widely within the charity and used to inform organisational KPIs, as well as ongoing strategic decisions.

“Girlguiding has worked with nfpSynergy for more than five years, so they have a really good understanding of who we are and what we do,” says Ruth. “We don’t have a data analyst function in the charity. So it’s really useful to have the team at nfpSynergy helping us maximise the value of the information we have and decide what research to do in the future.”