ANSTO (Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation) is an Australian government institution which has grown to be a home for industry, research, medical supplies through their landmark infrastructure and incredible talent. With their expansion and heritage came practical and political issues such as other government organisations creeping into their sector and the broadening geographical footprint as they absorbed more, smaller scientific government bodies, as well as internal challenges such as group management.

In order to draw new, more secure boundaries around their offering, secure future funding and continue attracting the world’s smartest minds, they needed to redefine and modernise the perception of their organisation. They also needed to persuade the public that they were a valuable national asset – a genuine challenge given the unconscious emotional negativity attached to the word ‘nuclear’.

Our first task was to create detailed understanding of the organization, deep diving into culture and structure to create an accurate picture of what the institution was, and what it legitimately could hope to become. We interviewed over 150 key internal stakeholders from senior management to safety personnel. We then put out a detailed research study to examine public awareness and perception around the organisation and some of its key themes.

We discovered that the organization had traditionally operated very much from behind closed doors and communicated largely around informational messages of safety, accountability and infrastructure, rather than inspirational messages around the huge benefit of their work to the public in the areas of medicine, the environment and innovation. In addition, although the word ‘nuclear’ carried highly negative connotations, once it was paired with ‘science’ it became immediately more acceptable. 

We helped ANSTO to become a valued national asset by changing the way they structured and communicated internally and externally, focusing on three key pillars of Science, Ingenuity and Sustainability to simply organise the incredibly complex work they performed.

A very simple name change - from Australian to Australia's - gave the public ownership of, and pride in, the institution, while taking the stress off the word nuclear in their title. We created a new framework for communications, which shifted from talking very rationally about outputs to demonstrating the amazing outcomes and potential of the organisation. 

We assisted them in designing a new internal structure which broke down traditional internal divides and aligned the group behind a single purpose and then helped translate this new purpose-lead  framework into an accessible communication and visual brand suite.

ROLE: Brand Strategy, Organisational Strategy, Creative Strategy, Creative Direction