Step 1 – What is Brand?

*Invite Club Members to view the “What is Brand?” video and listen to Rotary International Secretary-General John Hewko explain why it is so important.

Rotary International hired branding specialists siegal+gale to conduct research on the Rotary Brand and advise on their findings. They found that the brand was failing to keep pace with competitive organizations seeking to build membership. RI directed siegal+gale to produce a new logo and to provide the branding materials that would strengthen Rotary’s voice along with its visual identity.

Implementation of the new voice and visual guides was initially considered a soft rollout, but the importance of the new Rotary brand is directly tied to our ability to engage new members to grow our organization and continue to provide programs to benefit both our local and international communities.

Start a conversation with your club members:

• What did you think of the video?
• What was the main message you got from the video?
• What is a brand?
• Why would our Club care about the brand?
• Would you agree with how it is important for our Club to strengthen our own brand to create more awareness and visibility in the community about who we are and what we do?
• Can you see how our Rotary brand can help us be more attractive to potential new members?
• Can it help us get the attention of possible partners and others who may want to donate or be part of our service in the community?

A strong brand for your Club will help build even more pride for its members!

The overview of our Rotary essence, values, and voice helps us as we work to build a clear identity. The work to strengthen our Brand has brought more clarity to who we are as Rotarians, what we do, and why it matters.

Take a minute to consider the building blocks of our brand strategy.

First is our essence, which can be described as “Join Leaders. Exchange Ideas. Take Action.” This is not a slogan but provides three simple ideas to help us reinforce what Rotary is about with greater strength and consistency.

Next, our Rotary values of friendship and global understanding, ethics and integrity, diversity, vocational expertise, service, and leadership. These values are important to our Brand strategy—clarifying who we are and what we do, especially when we put them into active language:

• We build lifelong relationships.
• We honor our commitments.
• We connect diverse perspectives.

We apply our leadership and expertise to solve some of our communities and the world’s greatest problems, and our Rotary Voice, which is the unique way in which we communicate, captures our personality, our attitude, and our spirit. Our voice has a unique tone and style and includes not only our words but also visual images used to share our brand—logos, headlines, photos, graphics.

• It is important to use the same voice and visual identity?
• Do we expect to have similar Rotary experiences when we travel, to another club, in another country?
• What are the three elements that represent the building blocks of our brand strategy?

Essence, Values, Voice

The Rotary Voice is how we share our “why”—why we are Rotarians, and why it matters.