In March 2023, Women’s Place of South Niagara (Canada), an organization focused on ending abuse and intimate partner violence, rebranded as Birchway Niagara, to better represent what Birchway offered: it was not only a place for women. However, Jennifer Gauthier, its executive director, found herself in the fall of 2023 reflecting on the mixed success of the rebrand. The problem, according to Gauthier, was that “our communication was not as bold as it needed to be to really get the message out there.” Should she back away from the new brand and focus on the organization's core mission or go all-in on the new brand? Was a solution using both goals within one marketing campaign the right way forward?
Birchway Niagara: A Risky Rebranding Against Domestic Violence
Eric Dolansky, Maria Ballesteros-Sola, Kyleen Myrah
Product #:W38405
Supplier:Ivey
Discipline:General Management, Marketing
Setting:Canada, 2023
Industries:
Geography:
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Learning Objectives
- Understand different aspects of the domestic violence issue, including its root causes and methods, that organizations use to address it.
- Identify the unique characteristics and importance of branding in a non-profit context.
- Analyze potential targets for non-profit communication and build the associated stakeholder personas.
- Recommend a course of action for communicating a rebranding, in the face of results that have fallen short of the original goals.