With 145,000 members across the South Coast, Southern is one of the bigger UK societies and increasing membership numbers is a critical part of their business model. But it had concluded that whilst its membership structure was strong, its recruitment was it was tired. They turned to us to refresh the way the benefits of membership could be packaged to customers and communities.

Key recruitment objectives were to appeal to a wider demographic, especially younger age groups to sign-up. What couldn’t be derailed was the underlying, long-held co-operative ethos of putting purpose before profit.

We landed on a simple thought – ‘All Together’ – which for Southern endorses many things. It endorses co-operative society ethos implying inclusivity and community-focus. It is also a vehicle to explain that membership delivers benefits and makes a difference to both the individual and communities.

The campaign had to engage in the physical and digital retail. Collateral also had to work inside the Southern Co-op branding programme and retrofit some existing membership assets.

We also suggested the creation of a campaign toolkit. An interactive guide and asset library, it allows the internal marketing team to be self-sufficient and consistent in building campaign assets day-to-day. But they still turn us when there’s a particularly tough creative nut to crack.

The campaign broke in the newly opened Picket Twenty store in Andover. It was tested for both effectiveness and impact within a retail environment. Feedback from the in-store team was encouraging as they handled 70 new sign-ups within the first week of opening.

A nice footnote to this project is our work received an endorsement from Southern Co-op CEO Mark Smith who commented that ‘the creative was top draw and could easily have been for a blue-chip company’.

A great review, but being a food retailer, we regard Southern more fondly as a crinkle-cut and chocolate chip company rather than blue. Collaborating with them on every level to deliver a campaign of this nature makes things, all together, very worthwhile.