Case Study: Women’s Sports Foundation Brand Evolution
September 2008
Getting ready for a new season: The Situation
The Women’s Sports Foundation engaged Big Duck in April 2007 when they were anticipating a big moment in the spotlight: the upcoming opening of the Billie Jean King International Women’s Sports Center and International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame within the Sports Museum of America.
The Women Sport’s Foundation’s leadership team recognized this event as a great visibility opportunity: one they wanted to take full advantage of by putting their best face—and messages—forward.
old logo
Over its 30+ year organizational history, the visual identity
of the Women’s Sports Foundation had gone through several logo evolutions, and had used many different messages to describe their work.
At best, our visual identity was out-of-date and our messages inconsistent and confusing. At worst, we were living a communications nightmare.
— Maureen McFadden, Chief Communications Officer
Writing the Playbook: Big Duck’s Approach
Over the year leading up to the opening of the Sports Museum of America, Big Duck worked with the Women’s Sports Foundation to clarify their core brand, sub-branding structure, marketing materials, and messages, then apply these new strategies and tools to key print and online communications pieces.
Beginning with a Smart Communications Audit, Big Duck reviewed recent Women’ Sports Foundation materials and strategic plans, interviewed key stakeholders about their visions for the brand, created a survey creation and analyzed results, reviewed peer organizations, and facilitated several discussions to build consensus around findings and recommendations.
At the end of the Smart Communications Audit process, the Women’s Sports Foundation Board and staff agreed to a brand update that would strengthen the organization’s positioning and update its visual, spoken, and written messaging to reflect the desired personality—respected, empowering, inspiring, visionary, energetic, vibrant, dynamic, strong, and inclusive—defined during the Audit.
sample mood board
Big Duck began by writing the Women’s Sports Foundation’s positioning statement and developing mood boards to examine how the organization’s personality might be expressed through color and images. Once approved, these elements served as the strategic backbone for all subsequent creative work.
new logo
Next, Big Duck dove into new directions for the organization’s logo and brainstormed options for the tagline. The selected logo incorporated a new, contemporary typeface, a color reminiscent of outdoor sports, and perceived movement. The tagline distilled their work down to two words that incorporated both the seriousness of their mission and the fun of sports: equal play.
Big Duck also redeveloped the Women’s Sports Foundation’s key messages so they were easy to digest, repeat, and personalize– then translated them into boilerplate and an easy–to–memorize elevator pitch. Using scenarios and group role–playing, we trained the Women’s Sports Foundation’s board to bring the key messages into their responses to typical questions. We also supplied the board with “cheat sheets”—business card–sized reminders of the key messages and elevator pitch.
key messages “cheat sheets”
Following the update to the core brand, Big Duck also developed a new approach for representing the relationship between Women’s Sports Foundation and its many programs. We developed criteria to help them determine which programs warranted treatment as sub–brands and ways to marry these sub–brands closer to the main organizational brand, or “Master Brand.”
With new ways to show and talk about such programs as GoGirlGo!, the Billie Jean King International Women’s Sports Center, and the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame, Big Duck produced a Style Guide to outline the visual and messaging aspects of the brand, and define ways to keep the brand consistent.
Finally, the whole shebang was applied to new stationery, a dynamic website, organizational and donor print collateral, and more.
Karen Durkin with Billie Jean King
Opening Day: Launching
Big Duck and Women’s
Sports Foundation staff brainstormed several options for rolling out the updated brand, and opted to leverage several major events happening in the Spring of 2008. The Women’s Sports Foundation unveiled the new logo and tagline at The Billies, one of Women’s Sports Foundation’s special events that celebrate the positive portrayals of women athletes in the media, with a bright green neon sign, placement of the logo on the ‘step and repeat’ for press photos, and mention in speeches from Founder, Billie Jean King and new CEO, Karen Durkin.
Three weeks later, the newly–designed interactive website launched, and a brochure featuring the updated visuals and messaging was in print.
Put one up in the “win” column: The Results
Women’s Sports Foundation benefits from its new organizational identity in the following ways:
We’ve always been a highly–professional, serious organization with a clear mission. Now we look like one, too.
— Maureen McFadden, Chief Communications Officer
The Women’s Sports Foundation—the leading authority on the participation of women and girls in sports—advocates for equality, educates the public, conducts research, and offers grants to promote sports and physical activity for girls and women. Founded by Billie Jean King in 1974, the Women’s Sports Foundation builds on her legacy as a champion athlete, advocate of social justice, and agent of change. The Women’s Sports Foundation strives for gender equity and fight discrimination in sports.
Learn more about the Women’s Sport’s Foundation at
www.WomensSportsFoundation.org