Annette Reijersen van Buuren – Oranje Fonds

Annette Reijersen van Buuren is Head of Brand & Communication and part of the management team at Oranje Fonds. The Oranje Fonds is a Dutch foundation that supports foundations and associations to strengthen the social side of society. Annette is responsible for the strategic brand policy and positioning of Oranje Fonds and the positioning of brand activations. Together with her team, she also works on the organisation’s communication strategy and policy.

contributing to society

After years of working in financial services, Annette felt she wanted to contribute something to society: “Working in financial services, I noticed my creativity had run out. I believe that a strong brand is built on the 3Cs: company, customers, and competitors. You need to be authentic and work inside-out from your organisation, know who your competitors are, in which category you belong, and how you are distinctive in that category. In financial services, I noticed that the relevance is not there for consumers. Research showed that neuroactivity in people’s minds ceases when you mention the word ‘pensions’. It is not in our nature to think that far ahead. When there is no relevance and hardly any distinction, communication will start to focus on the little supporting evidence there is, mortgage A versus mortgage B. The combination of my feeling that I was done with financial services and wanted to contribute something to society is what led me to step out of that field in 2016.”

Rephrasing the Oranje Fonds’ brand story

“I wanted to focus on behavioural change and include people in a valuable and more rich brand story, which I managed to work on for 4,5 years in the reading sector”, Annette continues. “And this was exactly the challenge Oranje Fonds expressed when I started in March of 2021. You build a brand because you act on people’s emotions and you want to achieve a genuine change in behaviour instead of just sending a message. I found that our story was difficult to explain, especially because it didn’t cover who we are and what we actually do. Our brand awareness is high, but when you look at what people know about us, they mainly associate Oranje Fonds with volunteers. However, strengthening the social field with so esteemed volunteers is only 20% of what we do. Lots of people heard about “Burendag”, but one of many examples is that we also support about 20 projects for young people to help them be more resilient and stronger in society. We support people and projects financially, with knowledge, and recognition. That is a completely different message than ‘Oranje Fonds is an organisation that puts volunteers to work’. The story that people know about us needs to be rephrased.”

Drivers of growth

The foundation has been working on its brand story for the past 8 months. Annette describes how the foundation first set their organisation strategy, then formulated the brand strategy, and lastly the communication strategy. Annette notices how the brand strategy is often overlooked: “People focus on the organisation strategy, set their business goals and then proceed to think about media and channels. They forget to think about where their target group is and how they can showcase their relevance. You need to think about emotions and which domain you want to claim in people’s minds. Do you focus on functionality, price, speed, or another end value? Coca Cola for instance focuses on the end value of happiness. Thinking about your added value takes time, and you must include people in that process. The moment you have that in place and know what the brand stands for, you can start formulating the objectives. ‘What do I want to achieve? How am I going to measure my efforts? What are the brand and communication KPIs?’ In my opinion, the most important KPIs are brand awareness, preference, consideration, and associations.”

“You must be data-driven to show that everything you do contributes to the impact you want to make on the business goals you want to achieve. But it should not be the primary focus.”

Annette believes that KPIs are a means to an end goal, but not the end itself: “For me, KPIs and research are a means to build your brand and do the right things, but it should not be the goal in itself. We are very data-driven, but we are not data-driven for the sake of it. You must be data-driven to show that all brand communication contributes to the impact you want to make on the business goals you want to achieve. But it should not be the primary focus.”

the right target group

For the past few years, Oranje Fonds has focused its communication on the general public. According to Annette, this is not the foundation’s only target group: “Up until now, we didn’t reach out enough to our main target group of social initiatives. For instance, what a lot of people don’t know is that we help social organisations grow their local initiative with the Oranje Fonds  growth programme.”

“As a fundraiser, to include people and organisations, you first need to create awareness for specific societal challenges, so people understand that their help is needed, for whom it is and in what way they can support. With the funds Oranje Fonds receives it can create an impact with its national reach, relevant projects and programmes which contributes to society. The moment you don’t succeed in creating awareness, the right initiatives will not come forward.”

“We are now working with a new Knowledge & Innovation team, to map out the social domain better. Because how can we measure our contribution to awareness and market share if we don’t have all our target groups clear, including their needs?  For a long time, we focused on the general public, among whom there will for sure be potential partners and social initiatives. But you must think carefully about your message and the media you use to reach your target group, both for fundraising and fund spending.”

the long and the short

Annette believes it is essential in marketing to demonstrate the ROI: “Accountability of your communication spends is important, but the moment you only measure the number of new donators because of an awareness campaign, you are mainly engaged in short-term marketing. The downside is that you will miss out on the journey and the consumer’s mind who need to get to know you and process that. I am a big fan of the findings of Les Binet and Peter Field: at least 60% of your budget and activities should go to the brand, and 40% to short term activations. However, determining ROI on brand building is tricky. Measurements on awareness, preference, and consideration are important in that respect but are costly. If you have little budget and limited measurement tools, and the board asks for figures, it is very tempting to invest a lot in short-term communication. If the person responsible for communication doesn’t have the right arguments to show why investing in the brand is important, a board will quickly focus on the result. It is then very difficult for the communication department not to go along with this. At this point, the strategy is completely out of sight.”

“The basis of the brand is your DNA, it is who you are”, Annette continues. “Our mission is that no one is on its own. It is about bringing people into the thought process and getting them in motion to participate. To realise this, we believe that everyone in the organisation makes a difference. All touchpoints, from picking up the phone, answering questions in emails, sharing knowledge and thanking partners, contribute to the brand’s perception. It takes time to involve everyone, but we want to create that support internally. You can get far alone, but together you will achieve much more.”