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Unite and grow

Steering complex conversations, bringing big ideas that power lightbulb moments, pulling teams together around clear, sharp, motivating messaging – our brand work is so much more than words (or pictures). Often it’s about untangling knotty thinking and finding the right path through, so that everyone comes along for the journey. Like with Surfers Against Sewage.

Working together since 2021 (in partnership with the brilliant Venn Creative), we’ve helped this groundbreaking charity rethink its brand position, rearticulate its purpose and re-rally its team and community around the why at their heart – and the ‘Against’ in their name. The impact has been extraordinary…

Why, what, and for who?

Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) is a campaigning charity inspiring a groundswell of activists to reclaim and protect our wild waters for good. For over 35 years, it has been on the front line of ocean pollution – seeing firsthand how toxic polluters are making people and planet sick, and shouting about it.

In the last three years alone, its campaigning has supported a sea change in public and political awareness that is reshaping the understanding of, and action against, the toxic tide.

By 2021, SAS had evolved far beyond its origins as a grassroots surfer movement. Through initiatives like Plastic Free Schools and Plastic Free Communities, it had grown into a national environmental charity with a diverse supporter base.

The challenge

SAS’s brand messaging limited its ability to connect with these wider audiences and fully articulate its impact on ocean and plastic pollution. The leadership at the time recognised the need to reposition SAS as a charity for everyone who cares about our wild waters — without losing authenticity.

We began with a comprehensive brand audit, combining audience research, staff interviews, and sector analysis to assess perception and potential. This process led to a redefinition of the organisation’s vision, values, and mission into a clear Why–How–What framework, anchored in the principle of creating Ocean Activists everywhere.

Rallying the team

This framework served as a strategic compass, enabling teams to plan campaigns with a unified voice and stronger public resonance. We embedded this through a brand bible, practical messaging tools, and internal training to ensure organisation-wide adoption.

In 2024–25, following a change in leadership, we revisited and refined this work. Through in-depth consultation with the charity’s senior leaders, we helped them develop a robust theory of change focusing SAS on the areas where it could achieve the most impact: water pollution, plastic pollution, and chemical pollution. 

This approach sharpened its role as a disruptive campaigning organisation, leading to a three-year impact strategy and guide to work that could become a usable tool for the whole team to follow.

Part manifesto, part guidebook, the three-year plan became an interactive document sitting alongside the digital brand toolkit, packed with ways for the team to connect it back to their own work and see themselves on the journey, from signposts and editorial devices to exercises and thought leadership pieces – all integrated in a format and approach that was fit for purpose.

 

How it took shape

  • Brand audit and qualitative audience research
  • Messaging, positioning and tone of voice
  • Digital brand bible for consistency and alignment
  • A new, bespoke theory of change and three-year strategy
  • A guide to our work toolkit to educate and support the team to see themselves and their work shaping the charity’s purpose
  • Training, workshops and presentations to embed the work internally

Seeing it live

The most rewarding part of this work has been seeing how the team have taken it and made it their own. Through groundbreaking campaigns and projects that speak directly to the charity’s theory of change, they’ve reframed the debate, applied the pressure and pulled the right levers towards winning against toxic polluters, and reclaiming our wild waters – for good. 

From high-profile petitions and social media activations that have influenced water industry reform, to mass paddleouts, projection stunts and water quality reports that made the headlines, the charity’s spark, purpose and edge – all underpinned by rigour and grit – show the power of being Against, together.

In a nutshell

Our work helped Surfers Against Sewage understand, clarify and articulate how the care they bring underpins every disruptive step they take to make a difference.

It’s shown how the right words, used strategically and effectively, can unite and rally internally and externally, to create advocates and activists set on making change happen.

But the ocean is not my office!

Doesn’t matter! We’ve done this sort of deep dive brand work for organisations of all shapes and sizes…

Get in touch and we’ll be happy to tell you about our other strategic brand development and employee culture work including:

  • Messaging and positioning for The Roman Baths, which helped unify the team behind a clarified purpose and ambition for the destination, its social impact and vital conservation work.
  • As part of Hall for Cornwall‘s ambitious capital development project, we worked with the senior leadership team to better understand its brand architecture, messaging and strategy for growth to build an internal culture closely wedded to its purpose and aspiration.

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