British Rowing and sports marketing agency Brandwave created a new identity to support the organisation’s restructured membership programme.
British Rowing, the governing body for the sport of rowing, has introduced a new membership structure to make it more relevant to the current membership and the wider rowing community.
Moving away from a more traditional governing body membership scheme, current and prospective members can now choose from new Race, Row, Coach or Support categories, and an experience more closely aligned with their roles in the sport.
Phil Hornsey, director of membership and rowing community at British Rowing said: “Over the last 18 months we conducted a consultation process, including our biggest ever survey of British Rowing members at the end of 2017, with over 1,300 members taking part. Although over 60 per cent of respondents were both proud to be a British Rowing member and satisfied or very satisfied with the service they receive, it was clear from some of the comments that certain key roles in the sport didn’t feel that the membership structure was designed for them. To start to address this, we’ve created a framework with categories of membership that are more reflective of the sport as a whole.”
“Our new Coach and Support memberships were introduced to recognise that incredibly important group of qualified coaches, umpires and volunteers that support our rowers, clubs and competitions, and we can now start to develop and deliver services, benefits and content specifically for them, as well as our wider group of members.
“In 2019, we’ll be focusing on reconnecting former rowers with our new membership offer to help them to safeguard the future of their sport.”
British Rowing appointed Brandwave to develop a new identity for the updated membership programme, “Together, we are rowing”.
It represents an inclusive approach to promoting the membership to audiences that are already invested in the sport, or discovering rowing for the first time.
As well as the overall creative development, they also worked on messaging, designed the new membership joining packs – including membership card – and online communication assets; social media and email marketing. As part of the new membership framework, British Rowing has also launched a new online management system for its members.
This will improve the experience of buying, changing or renewing British Rowing memberships, booking onto courses and events, checking ranking points and accessing British Rowing member benefits.
It sits on the same platform as the organisation’s new ClubHub Portal, giving rowers the ability to manage both their British Rowing and club membership through one system.
Natasha Clarke, account director at Brandwave said: “We knew this needed to be emotive and speak to everyone who associates with the sport, whether they’re in the middle of their training, coaching at a local club, marshalling at a rowing event or simply enjoying being out on the water and as part of a healthy lifestyle.
“We led a qualitative research piece to really understand what it is about rowing that people love. The key insight we found from this was that everyone within the rowing community has a role, and each role is respected by the others. Racers appreciate the hard work of the supporters such as umpires at events, coaches respect their athletes on their drive and commitment to training. Together, each of these roles make the sport.
“It was important to move away from the physical benefits and really tap into the emotive reason for being involved in rowing. “Togetherness” was a core theme across all membership types, from camaraderie between team mates to the social benefits that come with rowing to keep fit or volunteering at events. This led to the creation of a more meaningful message, something that connects the different member types with British Rowing as a brand.”
