Our rebrand journey
ACCT UK has been supporting young people across the UK for over 90 years.
Subscribe to get ACCT UK news in your inbox. We’ll send you updates on events, grant deadlines, challenge events and more.
ACCT UK has been supporting young people across the UK for over 90 years.
We understood the importance of aligning our new brand with the charity’s proud history and the dedicated support it offers to the Army Cadets.
Research with cadets, cadet force adult volunteers and other people strongly indicated that, outside of our network, there was very little awareness of the charity and a limited understanding of the difference between the ACFA and the ACF. Investing in a new name and visual identity was crucial to increasing the number of people who understand that we are a charity and what we do, growing the number of donations we receive and reaching out to those who need our support.
By adopting our new name of The Army Cadet Charitable Trust (ACCT) UK, we wanted to make clear our work as a charity and highlight the continuing funds and grant programmes we offer to young people in the UK and to the cadets and adult volunteers of the Army Cadet Force.
As a charity that helps young people, we wanted a core mission statement and values that would resonate across our organisation and with young people and the cadets and adult volunteers of the Army Cadet Force.
At the heart of our brand are four core values: Abiding, Committed, Courageous and Trustworthy. Our mission is to aim to help young people across the UK to develop and achieve through the Army Cadets to improve the lives of young people.
Research was conducted with young people and their parents across the UK to help test out ideas and develop our visual identity. This work proved critical in directing our final brand design concept.
Our research shaped one simple unifying idea that supports our brand essence: ‘Guiding young people to success’ and combined with our desire to align with our history and association with the Army Cadet Force, our new logo was born.
The star outline used is at the heart of the logo. It is based upon the Army Cadet achievement badge that cadets proudly show to mark their progress. It maintains the Charity’s historical link with the Army Cadet Force, which has been unbroken since 1930.
The shining star with its inclusive colours, represents both inspiration and a compass for navigation; providing guidance and direction for young people through life’s pathways and at crossroads to their futures.
To accompany our new visual identity, we are focusing on storytelling to educate and inform our friends and supporters of all the work we do as a charity to help young people.
We are using an inclusive colour palette in our marketing collateral that aligns with the Army Cadets and which appealed to young people in our research. This is complemented by the use of the star outline in our digital marketing collateral including our website, social and email marketing to achieve strong brand awareness from the very beginning of our launch.
We are aiming to do more and better as a charity in the future. Young people and volunteers in the Army Cadet Force remain the priority beneficiaries of our support. The ACCT UK board trust these changes will be significant steps in the development of the Charity and the better achievement of its objects.”
Kevin Abraham, Chair of Trustees