BABTAC is ‘The British Association of Beauty Therapy and Cosmetology’; established in 1977, it is the longest running and most widely recognised beauty membership organisation in the UK. BABTAC represents and insure over 10,000 highly trained beauty professionals and work ‘not for profit’. The focus is the well-being of all members, the regulation of the industry and the protection of public welfare. BABTAC is headed by a council of industry professionals and it stands to represent the industry and add its voice to important issues; this year it is celebrating 35 years of setting industry standards.
The challenge
The brand was dated and old-fashioned and despite having an excellent proposition and service offering, the company was experiencing little or no growth in membership. Rebranding the company served to both mark an era of progression and change in the organisation and also to modernise it, realigning it as an approachable, professional, current and desirable brand.
Consensus from members was that the original brand was dated and there was a misconception that BABTAC was solely an insurance provider. It quickly became clear that it needed to update and better communicate core values and purpose. The rebrand tied into the overall objective for the company; to be forward-thinking, professional and inspiring and most of all to grow and flourish as a business. BABTAC used the re-brand as a spring-board for the company, going back to basics and coming out bigger, better and overall more relevant than it’s ever been before.
The inspiration came from the original brand and BABTAC’s sister company, CIBTAC, which both used circular logos. It was felt important not to lose its heritage entirely and so the BABTAC ‘planets’ logo was born; it uses the lilac from CIBTAC as well as the original circles. The planets that surround the word BABTAC were designed to represent the ‘inclusive’ feeling it wanted members’ to experience.
The solution
BABTAC worked with marketing company, Apt marketing & pr, and spent time discussing its background, its loyal members, membership benefits and objectives. Apt identified the positioning of the BABTAC brand, the job it had to do and the all-important target audience before preparing a number of concepts. These included the brand, keywords, colour palettes, potential straplines and collateral examples. Each was discussed in turn and filtered down to the final ‘planets’ logo. The process was incredibly fast (just three months).
Since its’ launch in September 2010, the roll-out has not stopped; in just 15 months, BABTAC has developed a new website and social media strategy, rebranded all membership collateral and magazine, established a new ‘Benefits by BABTAC’ programme with over 70 ways for members to save money, set-up ‘Promotions by BABTAC’ which has so far partnered with Tampax, Always and Actimel and of course, improved CPD training with BABTAC Short Course Accreditation service, as well as continuing to offer membership and insurance packages that will soon include savings on motor insurance and well women policies.
Results
The objective for the rebrand was to reposition the business and prepare it for long-term growth. The majority of campaigns have individual measures of ROI, such as renewal codes, references etc., which enabled BABTAC to measure the individual success of a campaign. Despite this, it is difficult to measure the actual ROI of the brand, however, since the rebrand it has seen a growth of almost 3000 new members. Not all of this has been driven by the individual campaigns, BABTAC has seen a general trend of growth following the rebrand – an excellent result.
