Background

ABRSM (The Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music) is the UK’s largest music education body, one of its largest music publishers and the world’s leading provider of music exams, holding over 400,000 assessments in more than 90 countries every year.

Founded in 1889, they have a legacy in music education, but their mission has always been the same: to nurture a love for music, and to inspire achievement in it.

Globally renowned for providing exams and assessments and in partnership with the four Royal Schools of Music, ABRSM offers pathways, support and resources for learners and teachers that help build musical skills and encourage progress.

Brief

In 2022, ABRSM sought an agency to lead them through a brand refresh exercise, ahead of a review and launch of their website. They are a much-loved organisation with a long history, a global footprint and a huge weight of expectation for precision, excellence and tradition. They were not looking to undermine these expectations, but in order to protect their legacy for the future, they wanted to be bolder, more modern, more human, and more inclusive. They needed a partner who could respect and care for the heritage of the organisation, but present them in a more relevant way, to take a fresh look at their brand, from creative expression to the language they use, personality and tone of voice.

Chris Cobb, ABRSM Chief Executive said, ‘In 2022 we conducted research with a range of UK based and international learners, teachers and parents and it was clear that our brand was feeling out of date and that the website was a cause of frustration for many. As an organisation, we’re building on our legacy for musical excellence, continuing to offer assessments and pathways, some of which have been going for over 130 years, but we’re also evolving and we wanted to represent that in our updated brand and website’.

Partner selection

Everything Connected was selected from a tender process for their brand strategy and design capabilities across a range of industries, including fashion, music, events, education and not for profit. It was this unique range of experience, a true passion for music and a deep understanding of the strategic challenges that ABRSM and their complex audience profile required.

Eleanor Hampton, Director of Marketing & Communications said, “We knew we’d need to work with a team that could help us to balance our heritage with our ambition to be more confident, more inclusive and to bring music back into our brand. We chose Everything Connected because we felt they’d challenge us to be bolder and more creative. What we hadn’t expected was to find a genuinely collaborative partnership.”

Solution

ABRSM is known for musical excellence and is the world’s leading provider of music exams. But ABRSM does so much more than exams. As a registered charity, they make significant donations towards music education initiatives around the world, support teachers and learners with a range of award-winning digital resources and publications, and provide a community to support musicians and learners and encourage more people to learn and play musical instruments. Through speaking to people within the organisation, the teachers, learners, parents and partners, there was a clear and real passion for music and a human warmth and emotion that was missing from the brand. Academic excellence and human emotion and openness don’t often sit hand in hand so we needed to develop a brand that represented a more modern, expressive and inclusive side to the organisation.

ABRSM said, “Our new brand is friendlier and more modern while respecting our heritage. It also reflects the support we provide to like-minded organisations across the globe through donations, scholarships, and sponsorships that help people start or continue their journey with music. We hope the new brand will help us to inspire even more people to live a life with music.”

Alex Kelly, Strategy Director at Everything Connected said, “Taking on this brief was a privilege, we had a duty to respect the history and legacy of such an iconic organisation as well as being able to push the brand forward and ensure that it reached out and inspired more people to learn music. The brand strapline ‘A Life With Music’ talks to their broader role in music, they are so much more than exams, ABRSM exists to inspire a love of music, to support and welcome people into the musical community and to live a life filled with music. Visually we have presented a more vibrant and emotive expression of the brand, with more movement and freedom. Music moves us and so should the brand. Graphically the musical stave goes on a journey, from stave to wave form to a line that travels across websites, content and social. The free form line represents each and every musician’s individual and unique journey with music. The colour palette was broadened and made more vibrant to suit a more digital expression, again a more human and less rigid expression of the brand.”

Eleanor Hampton, Director of Marketing & Communications said, “The team got to know us and our audiences thoroughly, helping us to evolve whilst allowing us the space to keep the essence of what has made ABRSM special to so many musicians around the world for so many years. We’re excited to share the new brand with our audiences and hope that they will feel as inspired as we are.”

Website

Following the branding project, Everything Connected was selected from a further tender process as the partner to deliver the new website requirements.

The old Umbraco website was a source of frustration for customers and no longer met the complex audience, territory or content management needs of the organisation. Data and content uploads were very manual and time consuming and site user experiences were inconsistent. In short, the site experience did not live up to the standards of an organisation renowned for excellence.

Following a thorough discovery process including, technical and infrastructure requirement discovery, user research, customer journey mapping and user needs ranking and analysis. Everything Connected identified Drupal as the right CMS choice to deliver ABRSM’s needs today and in the future. Drupal was chosen for its enterprise level capability, security credentials and unlimited customisation choices as well as the ability to manage complex content management requirements.

The new ABRSM website not only delivers and brings to life the new brand and digital design system, but also represents a more modern, accessible and intuitive touchpoint. Technically, it has a range of new capabilities built to deliver a first-class digital experience. These include a new approach to the site navigation using mega menu, sticky buttons and anchor links and horizontal navigation elements like teaser carousels allowing to show the richness of content offered by ABRSM. The approach to presenting exam dates and fees content has been optimised and the process for updating and importing annual exam dates & fees content has been reengineered, which has reduced the time needed to complete that process from months to 1 day. The customer journeys for searching and booking individual exam types has been redesigned and there is an improved way of finding and downloading Exam Syllabuses. In short, the ABRSM teachers, learners and parents can now find and access the amazing content and support materials that are available to help people learn and live a life with music.

ABRSM said, “Our new website will help our existing audiences to find the information and support they want more easily. But we also think it’s important that we reach new audiences, to help more people engage and make progress with music. We wanted to open our doors that bit wider; to be more inclusive, to speak directly to learners, to tell more stories and to bring the joy of music back to our brand.”