underscore are delighted to announce our rebrand of the UK’s financial capability charity.

Credit Action engaged underscore in May 2013 after a multi agency pitch to deliver their rebrand to become ‘The Money Charity’; an identity which would better align to their vision of making financial education accessible to everyone.

Underscore first looked to understand the organisation’s business model and competitive positioning, before exploring their marketplace and their customer journey and experience. Our research revealed that The Money Charity are a hands on team who truly care about their clients and so our concept developed for the rebrand was “a personalised identity” with a central brand theme, of ‘What would you do if…?’ that intends to start a conversation by speaking directly to the individual, whilst inspiring feelings of positivity and empowerment.

Each person at The Money Charity was then invited to add their own handwriting to the core identity, to create variations all unified by the “money” wordmark. This element of personalisation was extended across all collateral and digital executions, leading to the development of advanced website features and functionality including a personalised social hub, an individualised search function to draw on relevant content, and an ability for the site user to save and pin items of particular interest to them.

The result is the launch of a new brand that reflects the aspirations of the organisation, and its status as a charity, whilst providing an exciting and ‘fresh’ platform for growth. Brand promise meets brand experience with a friendly, professional, informative and engaging tone of voice, and honest and approachable look and feel.

Michelle Highman, The Money Charity Chief Executive, comments;

“We approached Underscore to help us turn our vision of The Money Charity into an engaging and positive brand. Managing money well can have positive implications for all aspects of your life and can help you achieve your dreams. We wanted a brand that helped us voice these messages. We love what they’ve developed for us, which we believe does exactly what we wanted. We were particularly delighted with the personalisation elements, and with the brand theme ‘What would you do if…’, which allows us to break the taboo, and start talking about money, from a friendly and unthreatening stand point. We hope it will help us to reach out to many more millions of people to help them stay on top of their money throughout their life.”

See http://themoneycharity.org.uk/ for more details.

Our team here at Underscore are getting comfy on the sofa in preparation for the arrival of London’s first exclusive TV station.

Details have recently been unveiled of London’s first dedicated TV station, London Live, is set to launch March 2014.

As one of 19 channels to be launched as part of a roll out of local TV stations across the United Kingdom, London Live plans to provide an alternative to TV broadcasting as we know it.

Rejecting celebrity driven formats in exchange for an alternative channel formula, London Lives’ head of news and current affairs, Vikki Cook speaks of plans to create a “noisy, knowing celebratory platform for new creative thinking and risk taking formats that puts young Londoners and the London creative community at the heart of our offering”.

London Live plan to collaborate with Londoners, to collate a true representation of the city from the streets up. Discovering and nurturing fresh talent, reflecting urban, modern London life, and becoming a forum for the issues London citizens care about.

The channel promises five hours of “hyper local” news a day and at least one hour of original current affairs programming. The channel will also feature a flagship documentary strand, Platform 8. After 11pm, Platform 8 will highlight experimental creative content, including short films, music videos and animation showcasing provocative contemporary, distinctive perspectives on London life, with mainstream audience appeal.

Ahead of the launch in spring 2014, London Live has been working with creative agency Kemistry and artist Yoni Alter to develop brand identity and imagery. Capturing the vibrant essence of London life in a series of animated illustrations, the stunning graphic design will go on air in spring next year with a stated ambition of “championing new talent”

The London channel will be brought to us by ESTV, owned by Evgeny Lebedev, who is also the owner of The Independent and London Evening Standard newspaper. London Live plans to share the newspapers offline channel as a way of developing a cross over in communication with their audience over a range of media platforms, creating a more accessible, interactive modern day TV station.

At Underscore we’re big fans of quirky collaboration to sell brands so here is one we love between a denim apparel retailer and Hollywood superstar shearing sheep and knitting jumpers.

In a series of five short films, JACK & JONES launch their new menswear range PREMIUM, starring none other than Oscar Award winning actor Christopher Walken.

Established in 1990 by Danish clothing group Bestseller, JACK & JONES has manifested itself as one of the leading jeans brands on the market, with several hundred stores worldwide.

The launch of new sub brand PREMIUM in early October 2013 sees JACK & JONES focusing on tailoring for the modern day gentleman, celebrating high quality in both craftsmanship and fabrics. The collection is based on a selection of timeless classics in a contemporary context, dedicated to perfecting the balance between casual cool and urban sophistication.

“MADE FROM COOL” campaign stars Christopher Walken in the leading role of a super natural powered tailor, serious about quality craftsmanship and hand made goods. Walken appears to use his bare hands to shear sheep and cut patterns emphasising PREMIUM’s hand made quality product promise.

I think we’ll pass on the inside leg measurement, thanks.

You can watch the videos here:

http://www.businessinsider.com/bizarre-christopher-walken-ads-2013-10

At Underscore we love heritage brands and their stories. Earlier this month, Britain’s music retailing titan arrived back on the high street, a stones throw from our office.

92 years after it first opened, HMV has returned to its original home at 363 Oxford Street.

On the 18th October 2013, Paul McCartney performed at the reopening of the music retailers flagship store, famous for being the place that Brian Epstein finally got The Beatles noticed.

Originally opened in 1921 by Sir Edward Elgar, 363 Oxford Street housed the high street giant for 79 years. The store played host to performances from the likes of Madonna, Kate Bush and Run DMC, before moving in the year 2000.

With increased competition from the digital music revolution, and with debts of £150 million, the chain collapsed earlier in 2013 but was saved from complete administration by specialist retail investors Hilco in April.

To signal the come back and reposition the brand, HMV have embraced their heritage with a tagline that celebrates their 92 year history. Created by The Council, “The Home of Entertainment Since 1921” campaign was launched with the reopening of the iconic 363 Oxford Street location, complete with signage inspired by the original “His Masters Voice” logo, reflecting HMV’s renewed focus on going back to its roots.

Alongside reopening the flagship store, HMV’s fight back strategy also launched an APP, online store and YouTube Channel, recognizing and delivering to the new digital age.

His Masters Voice is once again appropriate, relative and current. Whoever said you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?