The Australian Suicide Prevention Foundation (ASPF) is a non-for-profit, privately funded organisation created to help those considering suicide and to provide support for their affected friends and relatives. They already had a nationwide dial-in recorded telephone message service together with various informational websites.

Before coming to Conscious Agency, they had been running the automated telephone service for 20 years. They had a voicemail system where both suicidal people and those having suicidal thoughts could call. At that phone number, they could listen to a 45- minute to one-hour pre-recorded voice that intended to put them to sleep so they could have the opportunity to think better the next morning.

At that point they were looking for a way to reinvent themselves, to change the way they were doing things. They intended to become more relevant and to offer a more contemporary service. This is why it was decided that Thomas Green, specialist in digital transformation and co-founder of RCG, would join the board to bring his strategic knowledge that would add value to the foundation.

Growth Diagnostic

Although they had developed some great tools, interesting websites and a number of meaningful brands, they were missing something that was widely recognizable within the market. ASPF needed to get information out there to help those in need with either suicidal thoughts or their loved ones. They decided it was time to look for help so they came to Conscious Agency.

Giving advice to a non-tech savvy board who had always done things in one way would not be an easy task. They required enough education along the way to be convinced about a new way of doing things.

Growth Strategy

Through its group of strategists, Conscious Agency decided to offer a complete overhaul of their brand and positioning in the market. This meant redoing their brand identity, buying a top-tier domain name and then consolidating their social footprint across the digital landscape.

The project was massive: It included the launch of a new micro-website and embarking on the consolidation of all their websites into one master website that was easily navigable and made sense to the user as to how to find information to help. It also required a marketing strategy to get donations and also a way of engaging corporates in a B2B way of getting donations or sponsorship.

Brand Identity

As soon as the RCG team started to work, they found out that the master brand ASPF had a very aged logo which needed to be redeveloped. Sub brands -HOTL (Hold On To Life) and ITTT (In Tough Times Text)- required to put together branding guidelines to start creating a thematic way in which to engage the market. Now that the first plan was created, they had to devise new branding and new brand guidelines.

When Tom’s team developed the ASPF logo, they focused on achieving a total transformation of its ideology. The nature of this new icon represents the movement from the dark night of despair and depression, through the breaking dawn of that there there is hope, into the bright sunshine of a new day and a new release of life.

“It’s a beautiful metaphor for the journey and process that we can help people through for those that are stuck in a dark night of depression and suicidal thoughts”, explains Tom.

Website Development

ASPF owned around 10 websites and some of them were not even active anymore. They had been developed a long time ago and they all needed a modernizing work. Very often, they had duplicate content and they were about 500 district pages in content strong.

They decided to move forward with the pulling together of all the pages pages across the different websites into a singular master website that was going to be hosted under the ASPF banner on aspf.com.au. The websites would be linked across the seven stages of the lifecycle from positive mental health through depression, stress and anxiety and vulnerable groups, suicide and at risk groups and after suicide and those left behind.

The process was going to take about two to three months. Once it started, it became apparent what ASPF needed because of an opportunity with the Chopra Foundation, and a worldwide seminar called “The Never Alone Summit” to have a microsite set up to send traffic to. They put together a presentation and recorded a 20-minute video. Tom’s helped them by editing to present a proper content in a very fast time period.

This pushed back the main ASPF project slightly. Currently, the ASPF work set website went through design wireframe rebranding adjusting the content. Pillar articles were built to be published at medium.com to then form a basis of promotion of the website and social media coverage. The ASPF’s website is being launched in the next two weeks.

UI/UX

In order to create an effective website, Tom’s team focused on the User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX). The UI design relied on the following principles:

Cognitive load: Keep it simple and have a-lot of negative space around elements because it already was content rich.
Universal symbols: The use of symbols that only majority of people would be familiar with (user familiarity).
Hierarchy within content: The use of an adapted scale which would keep the correct proportion to the design.

Social Media Campaign

During the process it became apparent that the foundation needed a very strong brand. The board agreed for Tom’s team to go out and negotiate a high level domain name purchase. They were able to secure the purchase of aspf.org -one of the top tier brand domain names you can buy- for an 80% discount. The aspf.org was going to be the master head domain under which they would consolidate all of the contents.

Now, they are still in parallel tandem optimizing in tough times text website, and that has a promotional social media outreach campaign going on around it and an influencer campaign going as well around it. We will soon commence start a paid media campaign around it. This is the leverage point where we’re going out looking for grants to help the community really with those that are at risk, and those that are supporting those that are risk of death by suicide.

Landing Page and Microsite

Once the ASPF website is live, both the ASPF and the ITTT websites will have social media campaigns driving traffic to them and sharing the message that is so desperately needed. All this project was conceived with the intention of helping those who need it.

In the medium term, the objective is to run paid media campaigns that may drive traffic to their websites. In other words, attract individuals who are struggling who can reach the content and receive the important message of where they can get help, or what to say, what to do and how to help.

In summary, the total project included:

– ASPF/HOTL/ITTT re-branding process.
– ITTT Website.
– ASPF main website rebrand.
– ITTT promotion.
– ASPF donation strategy.
– Creating a fast turnaround microsite for a global event (ITTT).
– Setting up social media (@ASPForg).
– Buying a top-tier domain (www.aspf.org).
– Consolidating 10 websites content (500 pages)
written over the course of 10 years into one master site.
– ASPF Fundraising campaign