Thistlecombe · Brand purpose · 2024
Purpose, found
Malcom spent six months finding a purpose for a building society founded to help people save. He found one. It was helping people save.
- Client
- Thistlecombe
- Sector
- Financial services
- Duration
- Six months of discovery
- Team
- Malcom, Dilla, DJ Dan
The challenge
Thistlecombe Building Society was founded in 1862 to help local people save. Its new board felt it lacked a purpose, and asked us to find one before the annual general meeting.
The idea
Malcom's first observation was that the society's purpose was obviously helping people save. His second observation was that this was too obvious to invoice for. He ran a six-month discovery with 41 stakeholder interviews, 38 of them with himself.
What we did
The work produced a purpose statement of 212 words, a framework shaped like an onion and a manifesto film narrated by Malcom over footage of a lighthouse. Dilla then reduced the 212 words to three, which turned out to be the original three. DJ Dan set them in a better font.
Results
0
staff who can recite the 212 words
9th
framework Malcom made that year
3
words that survived: helping people save
Silver, Effectiveness. Bighead Awards 2024. Effectiveness was not measured.
The client
“We now have a purpose. It's the one we had in 1862, but it's in a much better font.”
More work
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The client, the people and the results in this case study are fictional. Bighead is a parody agency.