Executive Summary

The Nursery at Berwick Children’s Centre provides Full Day Care for children from six months up to five years with all year provision. The Children’s Centre is operated by Northumberland County Council, who put in place a plan to make the nursery facility a self financing, independent business.

This raised several challenges, not least of which was the limited awareness of the Nursery provision and confusion about what it could offer parents and carers. We also found that there was significant confusion surrounding the name of the nursery – with most simple referring to it as “the nursery at Berwick Children’s Centre”.

Clear Thinking.

After several meetings with Nursery management, staff and parents, we had a clear plan… any successful repositioning of the Nursery offer in to a private sector environment would be reliant on a memorable name, a distinctive visual identity and a clearly positioned and communicated offer.

We summarised our objectives as follows:

create a distinctive brand (including a new name)
reposition the brand and associated values within the local community
communicate the brand internally
raise brand awareness and understanding of the nursery offering

The children of Berwick Children’s Centre Nursery are encouraged to learn through play and hands-on learning… and closeness to nature is a hugely important part of the nursery’s inspiring environment. They are extremely fortunate to have a large ‘outdoor classroom’ area – creating a point of positive differentiation from competitors, we just needed to tell prospective service users about it.

The nursery encourage children to explore, experiment and learn in a safe, supportive environment though direct experience with a strong focus on the mental, physical and emotional development and growth of each child. There are lots of benefits to free and unstructured play in our natural outdoor environment, it boosts problem-solving skills, focus and confidence. Socially, it improves cooperation, flexibility, and self-awareness. Emotional benefits include reduced aggression and increased happiness.

The name we finally settled on, Cubs & Kits, was chosen to communicate the Nursery’s values of quality care, stimulating indoor and outdoor environment, valued partnerships and community focus. It captures the sense of the outdoors and proximity to nature and makes it a central pillar of our branding and communications with our promise of “Playing, exploring, growing. together”.

Cubs & Kits are common names for the young of woodland animals that can be found in the proximity of the Nursery… foxes, rabbits, badgers etc and so are recognisable and familiar to our audience.

Our brand identity also sought to create distance from other nurseries, turning its back on primary coloured plastic and childish graphics, reflecting our high quality childcare offer while retaining a feeling of inclusivity and fun. Aesthetically, it is more sophisticated with with a strongly defined sense of individuality based on or belief that distinctive naming and brand identity would give our nursery a tangible competitive advantage.

Executive Summary

Clear Thinking.

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