Like so many long-standing businesses, Specsavers, is a brand under threat from new category disruptors and increasingly advanced and ubiquitous online technology.

We were asked to help the brand understand how its increasing investment in eye health services might be structured to create a new positioning which would safeguard its bricks and mortar business model. A tough task for a brand with a history of light-hearted advertising and an implication of cheap and cheerful product in its name.

Our first task was a full audit of the eye health space and the brand’s existing activities and behaviours. Key stakeholder interviews were conducted to understand the brand’s genuine commitment and ambition within the health space and to understand the broader business context in which this evolution could happen.

Lining up key business attributes such as a large national infrastructure, state-of-the-art equipment and process, partnerships with academic, health and charitable institutions, we set about designing a plan to build credibility within the health space which could be then used as a reason to choose Specsavers.

Our solution re-organised and united the brand’s commercial and CSR activities behind one key goal - to eradicate avoidable blindness and vision loss in Australia and New Zealand – an accessible task to which all of their activities now ladder up. Achieving this noble goal would involve persuading all Australians to have a regular eye-health examination – the cornerstone of the Specsavers business model.

We introduced the new brand purpose through a phased approach, which sought to build evidence and a body of work, communicating through behavior rather than manufactured stories. We helped devise a national, annual, ‘state of the nation’ eye health report - a definitive breakdown of the nation's eye health establishing leadership in the space - which we launched to industry and media.

The work has helped change the way in which the brand understands and targets audiences, the way it is structured internally and the way it communicates its offering. Most importantly it has laid the foundation for a far more meaningful and valuable business to consumers and brand alike.

ROLE: Brand Strategy, Creative Strategy