Motion 12 Members’ Motion - Brand and Marketing

This Annual General Meeting:

• recognises the benefits the Co-operative Movement has secured by unifying to create a national Co-operative Brand. The Brand represented an important step forward compared with the much more fragmented identities used by the Movement prior to its introduction
• acknowledges the substantial investment made by the Group and by independent co-operative societies in the Brand. The Brand has helped our Movement raise our profile, communicate our values and compete more effectively
• calls on the Board to reaffirm its commitment to the Brand and to working with other Co-operative societies to maximise its future success.

This Meeting also recognises that the Brand has always been and remains a Movement-wide initiative, and that the Group holds the rights to the Brand as its custodian on behalf of the whole Movement. The Board is asked to ensure that any future evolution of the Brand is planned and implemented in partnership with the other Co-operative societies which use it, for the benefit of all those societies and the Movement as a whole.

ACTION TAKEN Revitalising our Brand is a key element of our rebuild programme. The Board has worked with the Members' Council in this area since the 2015 AGM. It has also engaged with those Independent Societies currently using ‘The Co-operative’ brand under the license agreements we have in place through the Federal Retail Trading Services (FRTS) brand sub-committee and with a wider group of Independent Societies through the FRTS Board.