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The challenge
Renew Europe is a liberal centrist pro-European political group working to build a sustainable continent for future generations. Working to reclaim original European values: peace, freedom, prosperity, in a time of climate crisis, conflicts at Europe’s borders, and economic challenge.
Acting in the interest of citizens, this forward-looking group required a refresh of their visual brand identity and digital communications.
Seeking new ways for their messaging to cut through the rising populism on both sides of the political spectrum, Renew Europe selected Brand Response as a partner for strategic guidance. And to develop a new website platform that would focus on grassroots campaigning.
Our brief was to create an exciting, brave platform that would drive clarity about what Renew Europe does and reach new audiences.
The solution
Brand Response’s team took a multi-step approach to this ambitious project.
Running a series of co-design and strategic planning sessions, we invited all stakeholders across all units to participate. Our research was shaped by voters, campaigners, MEPs, networking, and press to ensure the process was considered from a diverse range of perspectives but remained user-centred.
Brand response did a tremendous job and with their knowledge, creativity and professionalism they have built a user friendly and inspiring website.
- Marieke Dekker, Deputy Secretary General Renew Europe
Quantitative research was simultaneously conducted, examining and auditing digital channels, analyzing large data sets. In addition, we focused on benchmarking and competitor analysis to determine core areas of opportunity for the content strategy.
Having defined strategic focus and identified the main audience segments, the team began to outline the design landscape, product approach, and channel tactics.
Building on the core research, our designers were able to create a refresh of the brand rapidly. Ahead of developing the information architecture for the new website, we produced a Brand Experience Toolkit.
The kit encompasses brand guidelines and graphic samples to create a distinctive visual language to re-imagine Renew Europe’s identity for the website and across social media.
Our goal in these positioning visuals is to communicate how the common graphic style can be evolved for different precision audiences identified in the strategy phase.
On the website, we aimed to make a bold statement that Renew Europe is different and looks very different from other groups in the Parliament. It subverts “business as usual in Brussels” in a playful but professional way.
The homepage introduces exciting organic shapes, with the hero/heroine area containing the core “choose your own adventure” interactive menu selection that delivers more personalized content.
Ease of use, straightforward navigation of information and search was critical, allowing citizens and journalists to find information about MEPs, committees, press releases and events. In addition, restructuring the website established clarity on who MEPs are, what Renew Europe stands for, and precisely what they do.
More multimedia and social media content could be introduced into the user journey by providing visitors with effortless access to crucial information. Furthermore, a new focus on Search Engine Optimization made this content much easier to access by introducing both technical and content best practices.
The new website is designed using Craft CMS for ease of use and flexibility. Allowing for complex layouts, custom content modelling and multi-language capability. Content editors love using the new interface.
Finally, extensive training and ongoing support was provided for all teams. Our goal is to optimize and improve the website based on data constantly.
The results
After only six months since launch, the new Renew Europe website is already driving outstanding results vs the old website:
Dwell time has increased by 50%
Organic traffic from search engines is up 117%
Image of Emmanuel Macron courtesy of Remi Jouan, CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
