To understand how the brand was performing for people at a local level in Africa and Asia. As the evidence from the review was largely anecdotal, this felt like the natural next step, working more closely with in-country teams to gather genuine insight and determine what adjustments needed making to strengthen how the brand was communicated in each country, so it felt culturally and locally relevant.
The goal was to build a consistent way of connecting global brand strategy with in-country delivery, working closely with in-country teams. From there, we could understand how both were shaping brand experience and perception for staff, donors, partners and people in the communities where they worked.
From the outset, the global team wanted to work closely with the Kenya team to understand how the brand was being experienced within different regions, so they could co-develop an effective measurement system that would help them make evidence-based decisions about local brand development, guided by the people using it.
I joined as brand strategy consultant for a long-term brand partnership, working closely with the Global Brand Manager to start the measurement project from scratch.
I began by sharing a proposal for how I'd approach the challenge, which became our guide for each project sprint, from research to defining KPIs. From there, I facilitated a strategic workshop with the global brand team to co-define their goals clearly. We mapped how the brand works as a system for Sightsavers: internal staff delivery drives external experiences, and how both fed back into overall brand health. I used these team insights to design the framework, built for ongoing, adaptive learning rather than a one-off snapshot.
Together, we developed in-country workshops, research for internal and external audiences to reflect how the brand was genuinely being experienced on the ground, not just based on assumptions. The Sightsavers designers also got to work on a new suite of brand materials to trial as part of the pilot, so the materials and the measurement system could develop and inform each other.
A clear data story was also developed for the dashboard, translating data into useful insight summaries for department leads. I stayed on after the pilot to analyse the research, provide recommendations, and shape the final report.
The Brand Measurement System gave Sightsavers a clear, scalable framework to assess brand impact. It aligned teams around a shared understanding of what strong brand health looks like and what it takes to empower staff and engage audiences locally.
Most brand measurement is linear and one-directional, because it captures a single moment in time rather than the ongoing relationship between how a brand is delivered and how it's experienced. The world changes and life isn't static, so brands need to adapt, like Sightsavers is doing. This approach succeeded because it was systemic. It shows how internal alignment drives external performance, and uses measurement to listen, learn and adapt.
Insight from the Kenya pilot is now informing how this scales to other countries, laying the groundwork for global implementation. As the framework grows across more countries, it will start producing genuinely comparable insights, a clearer picture of what's really working, and where measurement itself could be streamlined and strengthened.
For me, one of the most meaningful and rewarding results was seeing how empowered the Kenya team felt by the end of the pilot. It's a reminder that brand systems need attention, care and collaboration from the inside to increase impact on the outside. It's been great to help Sightsavers lead this way with such ambitious and transformative work.