SWIP
A new look and feel: Empowering Policing’s Senior Women.
The Challenge
WCON (Women Chief Officer Network) was the recognised group of support for the professional development of women chief officers in policing in the UK. Additionally, every two years, they brings together women in ‘Chief’ and Senior Management roles in policing at the SWIP Conference (Senior Women in Policing.)
Over time, the ‘SWIP’ acronym had gathered more brand traction than the original WCON name, and ‘Senior Women’ more accurately reflected the breadth of roles represented across policing.
And so, WCON turned to The Team to help them rename and rebrand the group.
Our Approach
It’s always great to get to know your audience and it’s rare that a consultancy gets to see all its stakeholders in one place, but for this project that is what we were able to do.
The Team took time to attend the 2024 SWIP Conference in Oxford and jumped at the chance to meet and speak with a wide range of senior women about what the network meant for them.
Alongside desk research and analysis of other policing networks our Strategist (Cliff Ettridge) and Senior Designer (Laura Ring) were able to quickly develop a brand framework and test this with senior stakeholders inside WCON.
As Laura says, “Having the chance to speak directly with network members and to hear first-hand about what they need from the network just means we can work so much faster.”
Our approach
Through an agile brand sprint we developed a number of creative territories and were able to quickly show SWIP stakeholders what their new brand should look like.
The name was uncontested. SWIP was already in use and well-loved. What did need to be agreed was the messaging and the presentation of the brand identity.
The world of policing is swimming in a sea of blue, and blue is the colour of trust (think NHS, UN etc.) But what became clear from our work with SWIP was its focus on primarily building career skills; on providing women with guidance from peers who have been before them; and in building self-belief and improvement in working practices.
As our lead Strategist, Cliff Ettridge says, “This was a group built on the principles of confidence, professionalism, but with a warm and welcoming attitude. It was a community prepared to share its expertise to help everyone progress.”
Our solution was significantly strengthened by a deeply collaborative working relationship with the client throughout all stages, allowing us to keep a laser focus on how SWIP should be represented through their own eyes. This lead us to keeping diversity at the forefront of our solutions, as it most accurately reflected the client’s brand.
Creative
We decided to break with traditional colours and using the psychology of colour explore options that moved away from known colour associated with policing (blues) and those that natural leaned towards women’s campaign colours (greens and purples). Instead we selected a bold berry red for stand-out and to represent confidence and urgency.
We leaned into simple visual metaphors, using steps and gradients to illustrate a network designed to help members move up or see new opportunities emerge.
Using real images of senior women in natural settings, we let the creative show that this network was focused on developing skills and expertise in the workplace and not just at the frontline of policing.
Chief Constable, Rachel KeartonI deeply appreciate the bold and inspiring brand work that they produced which reflects our mission with such creativity and impact.
Sunita Gamblin, SWIP VolunteerOur experience working with The Team was positive. We asked them to deliver fast, and through their sprint process they did just that. Now we have something that feels bold and inspiring, and aligned with our vision.
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