One of the projects during our on-going engagement with The Executive Council of Dubai was to position, structure and develop an umbrella brand for a strategic initiative of the Government of Dubai.

Geared towards fulfilling key objectives of the Dubai Plan 2021, our research made it apparent that the data collection and analysis tools and systems across the government department matrix were perceived as 'IT' platforms rather than a collection avenues for data that would directly impact decision-making for the leadership of the emirate.

OUR APPROACH

We conceived and built a framework to inspire, clearly communicate the impact and encourage high-integrity participation from all governments departments towards big data capture and its analysis. We started by naming the initiative, which was to become a collection of several tools, dashboards and analysis engines, and built a visual identity to create a recognition symbol of strong decision-making. We branded the program 'Qarar' (قرار in Arabic) which meant 'decide' to effectively build an aspirational yet simple brand that could envelop any form of technology or analytical systems that the government could deploy in the future.

The symbol for the initiative was built from the Arabic lettering which was crafted to form the shape of a key -- in itself, symbolic of unlocking knowledge. The identity system was then extended to cover yet-to-be-named sub-programs and tools which needed a visual guideline for branding as well as a robust naming convention.

DATA DRIVEN CHANGE

We worked collaboratively with the government body tasked with big data analysis and live visual dashboards for the city's leadership, the Dubai Statistics Centre to ensure the brand strategy and its hierarchal system was implemented across all major touchpoints within the government. We also built a communication strategy to ensure effective engagement of stakeholders in a unified and inspired manner.