Aerospace, Defence
Comms
Brand strategy, messaging, website design and development
Our first engagement with Ascent was to help them reposition their brand to be more people-focused, recognising that they were well know as deliverers of the UK Military Flight Training System (UKMFTS), but not necessarily for what that meant in terms of their diverse team and the young pilots they are responsible for.
Ascent is responsible for transforming young, talented and ambitious pilots into highly skilled military and blue light frontline crews. You could not find a more people-oriented responsibility, yet their brand was biased to the aircraft they operated rather than the dreams of their young charges. The brand positioning also gave little insight to the diverse and multidisciplinary composition of their delivery team. We’ve helped them to redress this and put people at the forefront of their brand focus, to both internal and external stakeholders.
Never before has people-centricity been more important to the success of a brand or organisation. Businesses are realising that sustained improvement, effectiveness and innovation is dependent on their ability to inspire their stakeholders, starting with their own staff. However, it’s one thing to purport to be human-focused, another thing entirely to turn that into strategic advantage. We helped Ascent do that, and continue to support them in this engagement focus.
Commercially, Ascent has a range of future opportunities to expand their offering beyond the UKMFTS. In order to make that possible though, they need to ensure their talent pipeline. The best way to attract the best talent is to inspire people with the brand’s purpose and vision, and articulate that in human terms. We’ve helped Ascent develop their brand focus, articulate their purpose in new ways and deliver a much fresher and relevant brand proposition.
It’s got to be the initial brand repositioning project. We ran a really productive Discovery workshop with a variety of Ascent people – from media specialists who develop the flight training course materials to pilot instructors. From their enthusiasm and insights, our team was able to re-envision the Ascent brand including a new strapline: “They dream. We deliver.” In 2021, we launched a wholly new website for Ascent, and will soon launch a brand new staff-focused area too. But the focus for both of those projects came directly from the brand strategy work at the beginning of our relationship.
