Liverpool Philharmonic is a unique organisation in the UK in that it represents both the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall and also an extensive and groundbreaking Learning programme. In order to grow audiences and deepen engagement they needed a singular, audience-informed strategy.
We developed a simple toolkit with a set of clear brand stories, personality and tone of voice and training for marketing, front of house and wider teams to embed this into their practice.. This is now supporting teams in making the shift from communicating product detail (listing all the different activities on offer) to personal relevance.
We’ve quickly seen increased confidence in how teams present the organisation to the wider public – and our approach has been instrumental in creating a mindset shift – giving them permission to experiment, take risks and better embody the authentic personality of the organisation.
This was achieved through large-scale workshops with staff and trustees and a range of stakeholder interviews, we sought in-depth audience insight. An Audience Day including workshops and focus groups, helped us understand motivations and barriers for engagement amongst key target audiences. This revealed what audiences valued most about the Phil, what they connected to emotionally and aligned with, as well as some brand misperceptions that needed correcting. It also illustrated how the value of the elements of the offer could be greater than the sum of the parts but were currently presented as having separate benefits.
We then further supported the organisation delivering a new Vision and Values.
The Phil has now engaged a branding agency and website developers who will each able to deliver more successful outcomes with this strategy underpinning. And we can’t wait to show you what they’ve been up to (watch this space!).
