Ian Harvey Ross on the authentic rebrand of Deaf Services and the Deaf Society
Ian Harvey Ross, Head of Marketing at Deaf Services and the Deaf Society sits down with host Mark Jones to discuss performative vs authentic empathy, and the journey of creating a single, meaningful brand from the merger of two organisations.
We all know how a rebrand usually rolls out - stakeholder engagement, sure, but the fun of a big reveal, a launch event and an accompanying campaign. But what if it wasn’t a show - but rather, a conversation?
Ian Harvey Ross, Head of Marketing at Deaf Services and the Deaf Society, has been leading the rebrand of two long-standing organisations, Deaf Services and the Deaf Society.
Instead of the usual brand launch, Ian and his team are taking a different approach. “We're forgoing any of that celebration in order to bring the community on the journey,” Ian says. “If there's any surprise on the launch day for a community member, I think we haven't necessarily done our job because that person hasn't felt that they've had the opportunity to have input into what the end result will be.”
It’s no small undertaking - Ian understands the time, effort and cost to involve an entire community in brand consultation. There’s significant value to be gained in ensuring the whole team, cohort, customers, and diverse community members are on board.
“We've got a lot of different voices in the room and it has added time to the project and it adds a lot of complexity, but we've seen enough confusion within the community about brands working in this space in the past, and people pulling away from brands that they feel don't represent them or they feel that they haven't had a say in the process of development for,” Ian says.
“We think the risk there is far too great to not be spending this amount of time.”
When it comes to co-designing a brand that works within the community, Ian explains it goes beyond the surface look and feel. Authentic empathy is critical.
“We're not just discussing whether we like a dark or a light blue for a brand colour. We've got community members discussing what it means to be Deaf and then what it means to be supported. And that's been a really interesting part of this process,” Ian says.
To hear more from Ian Harvey Ross and find out how you can go beyond “performative empathy” through collaboration and consultation - tune into this episode of The CMO Show.
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Transcript
Host: Mark Jones
Guest: Ian Harvey Ross
We’ve all heard of Greenwashing - when companies invest in marketing their products or brand as “green” rather than actually doing the work.
But what about “performative empathy”?
If you truly want to work with, support, or help a community of any type you can’t fake empathy, or make it a performance.
And when it comes to co-designing a brand that works within the community, “real, genuine or authentic” empathy is critical.
That’s because brand strategy is so much more than how do we look and feel from a brand identity point of view. It’s more than colours and fonts of course, it’s the purpose of the organisation.
So how do we ensure our work isn’t “performative”? And how do we ensure we’re facilitating conversations to genuinely connect and better understand our customers?
Hello friends! Mark Jones here. Great to have you with us on The CMO Show.
Today we have a fantastic conversation with Ian Havey Ross, Head of Marketing at Deaf Services.
The Deaf Society and Deaf Services merged in October 2020 and we talk about the rebranding activity that Ian has been spearheading.
Ian is passionate about providing support to the Deaf community and shares the journey they have undertaken to create a new singular brand in consultation with that community.
It’s a really poignant discussion and I’m really glad to share it with you.
Let’s go to my conversation with Ian Harvey Ross.
Mark Jones:
My guest today is Ian Harvey Ross. He is head of marketing at Deaf Services. Great to have you with us, Ian.
Ian Harvey Ross:
Thanks very much, Mark. I'm excited to be here.
Mark Jones:
Actually ditto and I wanted to begin our conversation by talking about the Deaf community and really wanted your help to understand a couple of different perspectives actually on how we think about the Deaf community and how you think about the deaf community in your role as a marketer. I think the first question for me is about the capitalisation or not capitalisation of the D in Deaf. Tell me about that.
Ian Harvey Ross:
Yeah, no problem. We're a very diverse organisation so we're nationally focused and we've got service arms that cover the whole of life span for a Deaf community member. When we talk about Deaf community, we're talking about a whole range of audiences specifically on capital D small d, deaf.
Ian Harvey Ross:
Traditionally small d deaf is used for the medical diagnosis and large D deaf is for a self-identification as part of the Deaf community.
Ian Harvey Ross:
It's a catchall term for a whole range of Deaf community members. That could be profoundly deaf hard of hearing, deaf blind and it also includes some of the more diverse members of that community. Including coders, children of deaf adults, allies, their families, parents of deaf children. It's a diverse term that is really about self-identification as opposed to medical diagnosis.
Mark Jones:
Tell me about the heartbeat of the community. What's the sentiment, the bonds that bring people together in the community that you've described being wonderfully diverse?
Ian Harvey Ross:
Deafness really is a shared community amongst a set a diverse group but what brings them together is their language, largely. Auslan, Australian sign language the language of the Deaf community is so much more than English shown with the hands. It's its own language, has its own idioms and grammar. And it really is a real identifier for a large part of the community. Of course, the community is not just identified by those who are profoundly deaf and sign but it's certainly a cultural touch point for a large part of the community.
Mark Jones:
I presume within that space there's jokes, there's in jokes, there's all the spectrum of fun and also seriousness that would go with working within Auslan and that all the style.
Ian Harvey Ross:
It certainly is. The language has its own as I said, its own grammar, own syntax, jokes work very differently. For a large extent hearing jokes do not translate and I do pity, particularly interpreters who are subjected to trying to unpack maybe word play, for example which really doesn't translate. But the deaf community also have their own jokes, their own ways of telling stories and that's one of the most engaging parts of working amongst deaf people. Is that the way that they unpack stories the way that they talk about their own histories and the way that they can make that a really engaging storytelling experience.
Mark Jones:
I think from the wider community perspective, we've seen a real increase in the last few years of premiers, politicians and other leaders on TV with somebody signing. And so I think been a really wonderful development. What's that been like from your perspective? What are the challenges associated with that and I think people jump to conclusions. And I think this capital D and small d conversation we're having is I think in reflective of that, right? There's a very easy to make the wrong assumptions but equally there's a lot of positive going on too. What's been happening from that broader community perspective?
Ian Harvey Ross:
Yeah. Firstly, to your point about the prevalence of Auslan interpreters so that's obviously really important for us for a community access to information standpoint in times of emergency like a bushfire evacuation of a town, a snap lockdown happening in just a few hours. Those are the kinds of snippets of information that can be hard for the Deaf community to get access to if they're not presented in first language. I should preface this by saying that we have a large portion of the Deaf community for whom English is their second language. Written English is their only access to that form of information but Auslan is their first language. Those press conferences are live, they're unscripted, they can be chaotic at times and when that happens live captioning is inaccurate at best useless at sometimes.
Ian Harvey Ross:
And having an interpreter that really makes that information front of hand, accurate and clear for that part of the community. For us as a business, it's an interesting standpoint. Our key community group gets the information they need firsthand but we also get the benefit of more Auslan in the community. We have more people who are watching the press conferences for their own reasons, getting access to Auslan. Maybe they're interested in taking a class or at the very least they're more aware that there are people in the community who have different needs and different access needs to them.
Ian Harvey Ross:
I think it's been a real benefit that the vast majority of politicians this particularly for Coronavirus have taken the stand that they will have interpreters available for those press conferences. It has got us to the point however, that when they're not available, the communities really feels like there's been a specific reason that they're being left out or that their access is not deemed as important as a different piece of information. It's actually not legislated that the community should have an interpreter at all press conferences. It's down to the team putting that press conference together. At the same time we would also like to start seeing interpreters for good news as well. We've got plenty of access to information about snap lockdowns and Coronavirus numbers but if there's a press conference announcing a new piece of infrastructure or even new disability policy, that's where we actually would like to see interpreters in the future.
Mark Jones:
Okay. There's a lot of work to be done. We should just take a quick step back and and talk about the merger between the Deaf Services Limited and the Deaf Society. Just give us a sense of the organisation what's been going on and the sorts of things that you are focused on.
Ian Harvey Ross:
We're at the moment calling ourselves a new organisation born out of the merger of two of Australia's largest and oldest Deaf support organisations. That is Deaf Services, which is originally based in Queensland and the Deaf Society which has its roots in New South Wales. We officially merged in October, 2020 and currently going through the process of rebranding into a single organisation. I'm originally from the Deaf Services side of that merger based in Brisbane. I've worked with Deaf Services for six or so years.
Ian Harvey Ross:
Now that we're merged, we're the largest whole of life provider for Deaf, deaf blind and hard of hearing Australians and also have a number of services that are available or relevant to the hearing community as well. We're primarily an NDIS provider, National Disability Insurance Scheme provider and an approved provider of in-home care for seniors but our service offering goes much broader to interpreting provision as you've mentioned where an RTO so Registered Training Organisation for accredited training in sign language and maybe the brand that listeners will be most familiar with in market is also our fundraising arm, the Deaf lottery. That is our primary primary form of fundraising is tickets through that our union lottery. We have a lot of irons in the fire.
Mark Jones:
Yeah, you do. I want to understand a bit more about the Deaf lottery in just a moment but I did hear you say that it's the whole of life. In other words, all ages in a complete diversity of services just give me a quick snapshot of some of the additional services you are providing in that context?
Ian Harvey Ross:
Yeah, absolutely. Our path way starts from early intervention and therapy support for deaf children which also includes support for their families. A large majority of our families working within that space are hearing parents with deaf children. Maybe they've got the first deaf member of their family or maybe they they're understanding the deaf community for the first time. It's support for both children and their parents. And then we work through a series of different NDIS related programmes that support one-on-one understanding of information, better access to services or governments better access to services. And then we also have all the way through to our seniors care, which is an important part of the service offering that we have primarily focused around both profoundly deaf seniors and those who have lost their hearing later in life.
Mark Jones:
Okay. You really do have a lot going on as you're referring to. How is the organisation maybe the two different organisations in the past but I think more broadly the whole sector changed in the last few years? You've been involved in this organisation now for about six years. What would you say has been the biggest change that you've been dealing with?
Ian Harvey Ross:
The introduction of the NDIS has been pivotal not only for us as an organisation but for the disability sector in general. I'm generalising but for the vast majority of disability support and non-for-profits, they've been traditionally funded in two ways. The first being fundraising campaigns and donations and the second being block funding from either the state or federal government and due to the sheer volume of clients needing support within that organisation's niche, the majority of funding was channelled into delivering those services, increasing availability as opposed to functions such as marketing. That was not necessarily important to the ongoing organisation success. And it was certainly not there as an acquisition tool but rather a community building and information provision tool.
Mark Jones:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Then how have you seen the behaviour change in the Deaf community as it relates to choosing to work with you, as opposed to I have to work with you? And of course, this is a narrative that we see right across the whole social sector, what what's been a particular aspect of change that you've noticed in that regard?
Ian Harvey Ross:
The mantra of the NDIS is choice and control for the participant, in our case, the deaf participant. And what we've really seen is that the community need access to all of the potential services and need some explanation as to why should you go with us or why you should go with another competitor or a different service that offers their support in a different way. I think what's become really important for the community is now that they have access to more organisations is finding those that can deliver that support in Auslan. There are plenty of support opportunities that our clients need that are available from a multitude of organisations but not always delivered in first language. And we do have support workers from other organisations who work with passing notes back and forth or who bring interpreters with them for appointments as opposed to having an understanding of the language and being able to present that. That's what we're finding is the most difficult part is making sure that we have the staff on board who can provide those services in a way that is most clear.
Mark Jones:
Tell me about the broader community as well because something that's really struck me from working in the disability sector in particular, here at Impact Institute, we hold seven expos every year and included in that is the disability expos we run around the country. And so as I've been walking around and meeting exhibitors who are service providers to the disability community you get to meet this really diverse set of people who are serving those who need assistance with many day to day lives. The thing that really struck me was that for one person with a disability they might need up to six, seven, eight in some cases, more than 10 different organisations helping them do many of the things in life that abled bodied people would just consider a normal part of life.
Mark Jones:
There is a community of people and a community of organisations that are interconnected with a shared goal of supporting somebody to thrive in their day-to-day life. I have a sense of just how important it is to understand that from your perspective the person that you're working with will have a number of people, or a number of organisations that they're having a relationship with on a day-to-day basis. How do you factor that into your role as a marketer and as an organisation that's seeking to provide that sort of holistic care?
Ian Harvey Ross:
Firstly, what we need to be able to provide is an understanding of what the NDIS is and that people can select between different service providers that best suit their needs. We've had a really strong role over the last five or six years in reproducing NDIS specific information in first language so that people have a better understanding of how to access it and how to get the most out of what's available to them. Working with partners long term is a slightly different kettle of fish as you said, we do have clients who work with a number of different stakeholders. Even more so we also provide interpreters who will accompany them to appointments with other service providers, which are in areas that we can't support. It's a constant partnership between disability support providers to make sure that in our case, the Deaf individual is receiving the support they need.
Mark Jones:
Mm-Hmm (Affirmative). It's a complex world. Let's just jump back into the fundraising side of things which you mentioned. How are you approaching that as a marketer? What's your strategy? What are your aspirations?
Ian Harvey Ross:
Nearly all of our fundraising comes from the Deaf lottery. Talk about a complex market in the disability sector, the charity lottery sector is also crowded and there are a number of players, particularly in Queensland, who work in this space. Our point of difference here is really the charity that we support. For us, our supporters are in it to win a prize. And it's always excellent when that happens and we love celebrating that with them but we also love celebrating the fact that they're supporting us so that they can support the community. We've got a singular marketing and sales team that supports both the service side of the business and the lottery side of the business. Hasn't always been the case for us but it was important that we merged those teams so that the stories and the good news that we're generating through our services can shine through in the lottery advertising and really start to provide those supporters with a link back to the cause that they're helping to helping to support.
Mark Jones:
How does the lottery work and how would you differentiate that? Because I think for people who are discovering this for the first time, there's a little bit of a jarring kind of idea that comes to mind when you start thinking about caring for people and at the same time gambling?
Ian Harvey Ross:
Absolutely. We've been running the Deaf lottery for 30 plus years at this point. And as I said, it's a crucial part of how we've been able to continue to fund the new ideas that we identify. We've constantly looking for areas in the community where there are gaps in service provision and what we really need is a funding source where once we've identified those gaps, meet them with a service and then support that while it becomes self-sufficient because obviously launching a new product in a new market and trying to get people on board with that is not necessarily going to be a revenue raiser straight away. The lottery is really important for that. It is a gambling product but it's an important part of how we do what we do. And what we really try and do is as I've said, share the benefits of working with us and working with the deaf lottery to directly impact the community we serve.
Mark Jones:
And how more or less effective as a fundraising tool is the lottery?
Ian Harvey Ross:
What's valuable for us is having, being able to forecast out our fundraising. What we get from the deaf lottery is some assurance around how much we can expect to be receiving in any given period and therefore we can forward plan the use of those funds. That's what's really important for us. We run seven lotteries a year where there's always a lottery on. 365 days, there's something available to be bought and every time those those wrap up we have an understanding of what will be available to us to then feed back into services.
Mark Jones:
Let's shift now and talk about the rebranding work that you've been doing because I think so far we've got a really good sense of the community about how you are interfacing with partners and then obviously this fundraising side of things. Bringing two organisations together is no easy task and part of that is this branding work. I'm interested to learn what's the process you've been through and maybe what can we learn from your experience?
Ian Harvey Ross:
What we've found, obviously it's a goal for most brands to become so intrinsic to a customer's way of life, that they feel a connection to it. They feel some sort of ownership. They feel like they're an advocate for the brand. And that's the status quo for many of our customers already. They feel a connection and a sense of ownership to their local deaf organisation. As a bit of background on the community in general, there are a deaf society of sorts in nearly every state nationally and they all have very similar origin stories and very similar timelines. All being launched around that 120 year ago model, initially as very religious organisations to connect with the local community and help them survive and that we've moved to this model of empowering organisations and most of those have developed in a very similar way over time.
Ian Harvey Ross:
We have clients particularly in our ageing well brand, for example, who have had a connection to their local deaf society for their entire life. They've grown up receiving support from the same organisation, maybe they've drifted in and out of the sphere of influence over time but that organization's always been a touch point back to the community from them. For some of those community members, they used their local Deaf society as where they went every evening to meet up with other deaf people, to have those community-building conversations pre-internet or pre-social media these were hubs for people to come and celebrate the deaf community together. The decision to merge Deaf Services and the Deaf Society was one that was made the most of a shared vision for the deaf community, a shared understanding of the way we wanted support to be provided. But we were incredibly conscious about the relationship that the community had with their existing brands.
Mark Jones:
It seems to me when you talk about that loyalty and that identification with the local service provider this is really part of somebody's identity. Is that right?
Ian Harvey Ross:
Absolutely. Absolutely. It's impossible to have been a Deaf community member engaged with your local Deaf society and not feel some sense of ownership there. All of our deaf staff members are also community members and they have a connection to both the organisation as a staff member but also at receiving services as well. We've got community members whose families have worked with us or Deaf people who have hearing children who have gone on to become interpreters and now work within our interpreting brand. It's very much a large family and it's impossible to not feel some sort of ownership and identity within that organisation.
Mark Jones:
I think that's a really profound thing and probably a weight of responsibility that you might carry in your role, which is I'm a custodian of a brand that is emotionally and tangibly in many ways connected to so many people's sense of self. How do you treat that with care? And yet also make the right decisions that you know are right for the organisation?
Ian Harvey Ross:
The decision to rebrand at all is based on that duty of care, we're bringing together two organisations as part of an equal parts merger. Going forward with either of those brand names, long term was going to be a disservice to the other. And while we're talking about, we certainly can't continue to call ourselves Deaf Services and the Deaf Society forever. It's an unwieldy and very confusing brand name to be wielding in market. That's our chief concern is how do we respect the history of both of these brands while developing something completely new that the community feels engaged with.
Mark Jones:
Yeah. Okay. How's it going then? What's the process or the steps that you've taken to get where you are today?
Ian Harvey Ross:
Mm-hmm (Affirmative). Our branding agency, Brother & Co based in Brisbane have embarked on a structured Deafness awareness training course themselves and through that have built a process of community involvement that we're really proud of. We're addressing concerns with a couple of key elements within the rebrand. That's a panel of community members and also authentic co-design. Our brand panel is made up of community members who are all external to the organisation but some are service users. Some are actually more closely aligned with our competitors and some are within the community but don't necessarily have a connection to the organisation.
Ian Harvey Ross:
And they're representative of our diverse audience group. They have different identifications in terms of their deafness, different modalities in terms of communication but also in terms of their demographic profile, are representative of our audience. That group is working very closely with our organisation and also with our agency to ensure that not only do they have a strong understanding of background of the communities within which they're working but also to work on the tangibles of the brand identity.
Ian Harvey Ross:
How do we feel about colour and symbolism and logo and name? In addition to the brand panel, which is working throughout the whole process, we also have this co-design element. We're hiring two deaf community members to work within Brother & Co as a staff of the organisation. One in specifically graphic design and the other in language. And so those staff are going to be working within the team of experts to ensure that we have both lived experience represented within the new brand and also that authentic point of view. Those are two sort of key elements for us and along with a robust programme of staff involvement and updates for the community, we're hoping we can come up with something that is representative of that group and pays respect to the organisations that have gone before us.
Mark Jones:
As you're saying along every step of the process and I understand you're getting close to the end now there's this deep community involvement multiple stakeholders and so forth. How much work is yet to be done?
Ian Harvey Ross:
We're getting quite close to the end in product here. What we're really at now is how can we share the journey so far with the external community so that nothing that happens at the end of this process is a surprise. As marketers, I know we would love to have a big launch event to reveal the logo for the first time to announce the name and for that to be a big surprise to everyone involved but we're forgoing any of that celebration in order to bring the community on the journey. If there's any surprise on the launch day for a community member, I think we haven't necessarily done our job because that person hasn't felt that they've had the opportunity to have input into what the end result will be. What we're going through now is a process of releasing elements of what we've developed to date so that people can have their say, make sure that they're comfortable with the direction this organisation's going and make sure they're reflected in where we end up.
Mark Jones:
Now, I probably should ask a few questions because I imagine there are some of our listeners who have got eyebrows raised. Because this is very counter-cultural in terms of the normal quote unquote way that you would develop a brand. Yes, you'll take on your stakeholder input from a customer point of view at the beginning as part of your research but ostensibly, then you're done. The amount of engagements that's required I imagine increases the cost and the time associated with this project. Is that right? Can you give us a sense of how much more complexity is being introduced into the project as a result of the approach that you are quite rightly taking?
Ian Harvey Ross:
Yeah, it certainly is a, it's a complex process. There are a lot of stakeholders. We're also in addition to the community we've got staff who've worked for the organisation for their entire corporate careers who also have a stake in what we're working with here. We've got a lot of different voices in the room and it has added time to the project and it adds a lot of complexity but we've seen enough confusion within the community about brands working in this space in the past and people pulling away from brands that they feel don't represent them or they feel that they haven't had a say in the process of development for. We think the risk there is far too great to not be spending this amount of time.
Mark Jones:
How good are you at stakeholder engagement, stakeholder management?
Ian Harvey Ross:
Purely through having a staff base that is has a significant deaf cohort through having deaf team members within the marketing and sales function as well. We're pretty good but we've also got a very diverse audience base. Between the different forms of community engagement between our hearing portions, our seniors, we're not going to be able to please everyone. We're taking that on board but we'd like to see that we have the most authentic process to develop where we land and that we have a large portion of our community engaged.
Mark Jones:
Along those lines, tell me what's been your biggest ‘aha’ along this process because I'm just having a look at some of your background you've got production and journalism and social media and obviously business and marketing and strategy. You've got a really great mix of skills that you brought into this. This particular project I imagine is really well, quite an experience for you in the best sense of the word, right? What's been your one or two biggest ‘ahas’?
Ian Harvey Ross:
I think there's a couple of things for me. For these panel meetings I'm really taking a backseat and I've really enjoyed watching the discussions happening between a very diverse cross-section of the community. We're not just discussing whether we like a dark or a light blue for a brand colour. We've got community members discussing what it means to be deaf and then what it means to be supported. And that's been a really interesting part of this process is how far outside of the traditional brand elements, where we're talking when we start to put this all together.
Ian Harvey Ross:
For me personally, it's also been down to authentic team creation. If we had not had the mix within the marketing and sales function of hearing and deaf staff bilingual, bi-cultural throughout this process, there's no way that we could authentically represent the community. The idea of nothing about us without us is something that we're taking very seriously from a staff group as a whole. We're a deaf led organisation, we've got a predominantly deaf executive team, for example. And these are all elements that if that wasn't present throughout the process, I don't think we could have the same quality product at the end of the day.
Mark Jones:
Run that line by me, again.
Ian Harvey Ross:
Nothing about us without us.
Mark Jones:
Yes, is that your tagline?
Ian Harvey Ross:
It's not. It's something that we find quite a lot in the marginalised community space but it's something that we champion for a great deal of the work that we do. We for example wont participate in media interviews on Deaf issues, unless we're presenting both a deaf and a hearing perspective or a full deaf perspective. For example, in this discussion if we're here to talk, what does it mean to be deaf that's not a discussion for me to have as a hearing person. That would be where we'd bring in a deaf member of our staff to be part of that conversation. We find that we're here to support and stand with the community. We're not here to speak for them or to take that opportunity away.
Mark Jones:
What I'm really appreciating in this conversation is the extent to which brand strategy is so much more than how do we look and feel from a brand identity point of view. And you've reflected this in a number of different ways because when you start these conversations and we're speaking about this inclusivity and the identity that's associated with being in this community, the personal identity in the process surface so many important conversations and it possibly brings to light issues within the organisation that maybe they've been sort of elephants in the room that haven't kind of been properly addressed, whether it's a structural thing or a language thing, messaging and so forth.
Mark Jones:
I'm really appreciating the care and attention here because what it's saying is brand strategy is a bigger idea and more important perhaps than at a surface level some people might perceive it to be. What have been some of the things that have been thrown up and that you've had to deal with as big issues?
Ian Harvey Ross:
Absolutely. I think the biggest part of this is what happens when you bring two distinct organisations with a similar mission, a similar history but with 100 years of individual development. What happens when you bring those together and start asking staff and management about what the organisation is here for. One of the very first questions we ask during this rebrand process is for staff in particular to provide just single words or phrases that represent each organisation separately. And what we found is that there's not necessarily a cohesive answer to what these organisations are here for.
Ian Harvey Ross:
We're a very large organisation as a merged entity. We've got offices in nearly all states and staff across the country, now. Are we still a community-based organisation or I'll be a much bigger beast at this point. And these are the kinds of questions that through the rebrand activity, we were able to take some time to really consider but at that point it needs to get passed from the marketing team, from this brand process up into the organisation more generally. How do we start to have those conversations to better understand where we sit within the market and how we interact with our customers?
Mark Jones:
There's always a risk, for those of us that care about deadlines and projects and keeping things moving that they're important conversations but it also could derail or slow down the whole thing. At some point people do need to step in make hard decisions. I guess we're talking about leadership here, aren't we? How have you thought about that in your role?
Ian Harvey Ross:
Yeah, absolutely. Look within the organisation if we're pushing timelines out to make sure that we understand all the elements that go into this rebrand but we have to consider all of our priorities at this point and work out where that sits in the process of building this brand. Mostly importantly for us is that we have an organisation that understands where we're trying to go and that brings the staff cohort with us. Making sure that that is top of mind, rather than a deadline that discusses sort of what is the brand name is sort of what we're focusing at the moment.
Mark Jones:
Yeah. Great. So looking ahead, what are the challenges that you think you'll continue to have to work on as you resolve this issue and then your attention's obviously going to change and build on an agreed position.
Ian Harvey Ross:
Specifically for the brand project, we do have to start thinking about what in Brisbane, we can refer to it as the Lang Park problem. How do we make sure that the community adopts the new brand and champions that and doesn't resolve back to the brands that they've become familiar with for a long time?
Mark Jones:
Meaning you can put a different name on the stadium but everyone still calls it Lang Park, right?
Ian Harvey Ross:
That's the danger. And that's something that we've found certainly in the evolution of both Deaf Services and Deaf Society in the past, as we've made small tweaks to our organisation. At one point, we were called Deaf Services Queensland and that's certainly still a name that exists within pockets of the community that we're trying to bring them on the journey and explain the move and why that happened and how we can bring them on that. That's a focus for us.
Ian Harvey Ross:
Secondly though, once we've got this brand project behind us, we can move back to what we really would like to be focusing on. And that's how can we engrain the organisation's efficacy message within our marketing. This is a really important element of our ongoing success that we have a separate advocacy and impact team and they have a set of agenda items that they're working with, key stakeholders, state and federal governments on. But within marketing, we have access to one of the largest audience groups both within the Deaf community and in the larger lottery supporter database. How can we leverage that group for social good. How can we explain the challenges facing the Deaf community and bring them on that journey and try and raise grassroots groundswell for even the smallest supportive action at the same time that we're speaking to government about these key issues?
Mark Jones:
How are you measuring your impact on the Deaf community and then feeding that into the advocacy? Or maybe that's the plans that you've got coming because obviously we need to be able to prove to demonstrate the effectiveness of the organisation over a long period of time. What will your challenge be in that regard?
Ian Harvey Ross:
Because we have such a varied service offering individual KPIs within teams for delivery of service and do the community have what they need from us, is a key issue. But right now we're focused on how do we fill that whole of life mantra and where are the gaps and where are the pockets of the community that we're not currently servicing? Success for us is to make sure that all members of the Deaf community, self identifying have what they need from this organisation and that's a national commitment. We launched a service in the Northern Territory earlier this year. That was not necessarily a planned activity for us but it was an immediate community need that evolving through the movement of other organisations in that space was becoming urgent on our end. How can we identify those issues and then fill the gap as quickly as possible? That's the real focus for us.
Mark Jones:
Yeah. Great. Well, a lot to do there.
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Ian Harvey Ross:
I think that's something I've taken from this is really about how people are starting to come on board with what is performative consultation, what is performative empathy, and what is actual engagement with your customer base?
Ian Harvey Ross:
We are flexible on announcement because we are not beholden to a timeline, over the input of the community. And if we do have a group down to a couple of people who have an issue with where we land we'd much rather take the time to work it through with them before pushing forward on what this looks like.
Mark Jones:
Yeah, no, you're quite right. Performative empathy is a term that I've not heard before. meaning you're putting it on, right.
Ian Harvey Ross:
I think it is about authentically understanding the value of that empathy. And the delving down on that is performative consultation or a performative involvement of the community and in service design and delivery, for example in our case. If you're engaging with that it's because you think that there are risks in not being shown to do that but you're not also understanding that there is value in undertaking that. There's no way that our organisation but specifically my team could be successful if we weren't a bilingual team with not quite all but almost equal mix of deaf and hearing staff. Bringing those perspectives into campaign development is crucial for us, without that we don't have a campaign that speaks to the community who we're trying to target.
Mark Jones:
That's right. It's authentic empathy is really what we're speaking about here, isn't it? And I find that it's remarkable really because it actually takes a whole of team and a whole of company, or a structural approach.
Ian Harvey Ross:
Absolutely.
Mark Jones:
Look, just in closing what would you say are the main differences between the sorts of work you're doing in the not-for-profit sector, in the social sector versus if you like the commercial sector for corporates and consumer organisations. There's a real distinction here that I'm seeing, but I'd love to hear your reflection on what those differences might be.
Ian Harvey Ross:
Currently, when we look at our messaging for our community, how we present that message is our real focus at the moment. We have a community that needs to receive their information in first language. We're focusing on video production the re-transmission of key information that comes out of government in regards to Coronavirus, for example. How do we repackage that in a way that is accessible and deliver it quickly to the community. When we're looking at our deaf lottery and how we're providing that messaging, it's how can we continue to sell a product but how can we bring the supporter on the journey of working with the deaf community? How can we impart that understanding on them at the same time as we're encouraging them to support our organisation?
Mark Jones:
Okay. Again, the nuances and the complexities of working within a broader community of the government complexities or stakeholder engagement there and bringing people on the journey whereas in the corporate space, of course, you can be far more direct this is what we're doing. If you don't like it, you don't have to stay. It's kind of brutally different, isn't it?
Ian Harvey Ross:
Absolutely. Certainly when we're working with our community, they have options as to where they receive their services. But at the end of the day, if they're choosing to do that somewhere else, we have to reflect on why that is and not from a revenue raising perspective but from the perspective of are they getting what they need from an organisation in our space?
Mark Jones:
Well, look I imagine it takes an extraordinary amount of patience, empathy, commitment and all sorts of other important human qualities to do the sort of work you're doing. Ian I've really been impressed at the firstly your story but the approach that you're taking to bringing people on this journey it's from how it sounds, I think you're definitely heading in the right direction. But mostly I just love the community involvement that that's going on there. Look all the best with the brand work that you're doing. And then more broadly some of those other future things that you're working on. Ian Harvey, Ross, thank you so much for being our guest on The CMO Show today.
Ian Harvey Ross:
Thank you very much, Mark. I appreciate it.
Mark Jones:
So that was my conversation with Ian Harvey Ross.
I really love his genuine passion to create a new brand identity through collaboration and consultation with the Deaf community.
I think Deaf Services are a great example of an organisation displaying “authentic” empathy - ensuring the whole team, cohort, customers, community, and even competitors are on board.
They are never distracted from their core purpose to provide support and genuine relationships with members of their community.
It’s a good example of how Deaf Services understands the time and effort to bring a whole community with you on a brand journey is significant. It’s not the easy road to take, but it’s the right one.
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