Never Stop Messaging
Helping a national association of military
officers communicate to its audience
Challenge
Military Officers Association of America (MOAA) is the nation’s most influential association of military officers. It is an independent, nonprofit, politically nonpartisan organization composed of more than 350,000 members from every branch of service. As a membership organization, their marketing goals are generating new members, encouraging existing members to upgrade their membership levels and retaining existing members.
LMO began work with MOAA in 2009. Our initial organizational assessment and research indicated that existing members didn’t fully understand the benefits MOAA offered and prospective members, while familiar with MOAA, didn’t understand the value of membership. Furthermore, though MOAA communicated often with their audience, this communication was inconsistent and lacked a consistent message and point of view.
Solution
The goal for MOAA’s rebranding was to develop clear, consistent, relevant communication of its value and services. When we began, MOAA had a wide range of audience groups within their existing and potential membership sphere but lacked a communication strategy. To resolve this challenge, we used research and insights we developed about MOAA’s target audience to develop eight member personas. These personas have similar characteristics and could be communicated with in a similar way.
Results
With our member personas in mind, we developed an overarching concept that would emphasize MOAA’s value and services and provide a consistent thread for the organization: the shared value of service. MOAA is a force for good, lobbying to protect the interests of all service members and their families. In essence, MOAA serves these people, whether it’s by fighting for legislation or providing great benefits to officers.
Service is also the underpinning of the officer mindset—these are people with a purpose. Through research, ideation, prototyping and testing, we uncovered their final positioning: “Never stop serving.” Around this positioning we built the official brand strategy that included MOAA’s brand promise, mission, vision, tagline, personality, voice and logo system.
