Building a Foundation for a New National Body
The Australian Association for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Peer Workers needed a brand and messaging foundation before a fixed national launch, with an audience spanning peer workers, ,government, funders and employers, each needing a different message in language that couldn't tip into clinical framing. Compass Studio ran a discovery workshop with the Association's leadership, then built a branding, messaging and content strategy to carry that complexity without losing clarity.
The Challenge
The National Mental Health Consumer Alliance was launching the first national body to represent Australia's peer workforce, the Australian Association for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Peer Workers. The audience was anything but simple: peer workers with intersecting lived and living experience, First Nations peer workers with their own cultural considerations, and government, funders and employers who each needed a different case made to them.
The Approach
Compass Studio treated this as a branding, messaging and membership challenge, not a single communications plan. Work started with a discovery workshop with the Association's leadership, then moved through a branding and positioning strategy, a messaging and audience strategy for peer workers, members, government and funders, a topline content strategy, and a website structure and sitemap delivered ahead of the developer's start date.
The Impact
The result is a complete brand and messaging foundation for a national body that previously had none. Peer workers, government, funders and employers each now have a message built for them, grounded in the language of the consumer movement rather than clinical framing, ready to carry the Association through its national launch and into a sustainable membership model.
"They understood our niche audience with ease and produced an amazing communication strategy for us that we use on a weekly basis."
Danielle Bament
General Manager
A Strategy Ready for National Launch
What started as a branding and messaging challenge became the foundation the Association will build on for years, well beyond its national launch. The work now sits with the Association's team, ready to adapt as the organisation and its membership model grow.