For the Helpers: name for online platform aimed at a victims’ environment

Project: Name for a new platform, including a storyline and advise about implementation
Client: Victim Support Netherlands

Helping someone…

For many, this feels like a natural thing. A primal instinct, something that comes naturally within you and where you simply 'do what you can'. A known fact.

Nevertheless, research by Victim Support Netherlands shows that friends and family of someone who has experienced something serious or traumatic, often find it difficult to talk to that person and to offer the right help. This insecurity may cause the contact to be avoided. Even though people who do not receive social support, run a higher risk of developing even more psychological symptoms.

The specific issues that people encounter, differ per person. Some find it difficult to have conversations with the victim. Others have difficulty offering the right practical help. Moreover, in such situations it is often forgotten that maintaining one's own boundaries is also crucial.

Specific examples of questions people may have

How can I respond appropriately in conversations? What questions can I ask and how should I ask those? To whom or to what organization should I refer? How do I deal with my own emotions? What is it exactly that a victim goes trough? What help can I offer with filing a report? But also: how do other people do this? And am I doing it right?

Answers, advice and guidance

To provide guidance and answers, Victim Support Netherlands has created an online platform with support for those who help a victim. The platform provides information about practical matters such as handling claims and filing a report. There is an online mini-training 'Helping better in 7 steps'. There are also tips on offering emotional support and recognizing anxiety and stress symptoms. Useful checklists can be found and there is an online community where people can exchange experiences and ask questions.

Goal: knowing how to help
This way, the environment is enabled to help when a loved one has become the victim of a crime. Friends and family really don't have to become professional counselors. Knowing how to handle confronting situations and how to support someone in a way that fits you, the victim and the situation, is the most important goal of the platform. This direct support means a lot to victims.

Globrands’ assignment: develop an umbrella name and storyline that clarifies who this service is meant for and what it will get them

• make sure that the name matches Victim Support Netherlands
• and that it distinguishes itself from direct help to victims,
• think about navigation to the part of the platform aimed at professionals

Approach and result: the platform name ‘Voor de Helpers’ (For the Helpers)

Interviews with the target audience

In order to better interpret the role of the target audience, interviews were conducted with people who have supported someone in their environment. They have been asked to go back to that situation and try to put it into words. This allowed us to gain insight into the language that the target group uses and how they view their role in such a situation.

Discovering possibilities
Based on their input, a number of naming routes and possible name types were explored in the subsequent naming strategy workshop.

Examples of exploration
What happens when the platform itself gets named, will a distinctive brand name work or is there striking symbolism?

Does the target group identify itself as a 'support provider', or perhaps as a 'close friend or family'? What is the right and motivating way of naming what they 'do'.

Can it be understood as 'being there', is it about 'being ready' or is 'support' more appropriate?

Most important results

1. Ensure recognition: the target group should identify very well in what he or she does. These people are victim-focused and are not immediately aware of their own role in such a situation.
   2. In addition, it is important that all possible suggestions of judgement of value should be avoided. Help = help.

Present the practice
In the in-depth creative phase and in the shortlist session, various name concepts were created and presented. By showing the name proposals in combination with a prototype of the website page, in a draft press release and on an ABRI, the practical applicability of the options was visualized.

A discussion with the project group, which consisted of various stakeholders, ensured that the names could be properly reviewed based on the situation of possible users of the platform. The storyline also formed a concrete assessment tool.

Why is 'For the Helpers' the most appropriate name?

• • Naming the target audience
    For the Helpers literally communicates who the platform is for. The target audience is concretely mentioned, based on what they do. Adding ‘the’ emphasizes the role and adds. They can determine the way in which the target group interprets the role as helper themselves, based on the tools that the platform offers them.

• • Navigating in relation to sender Victim Support Netherlands
    The name has the ability to address this group in a clear and neutral way, to motivate them positively and to navigate them to the right section of the Victim Support Netherlands website. With regard to victims themselves, but also to other target groups of Victim Support Netherlands, such as professionals and potential volunteers. This descriptive form of naming provides exactly the clarity needed in these kinds of vulnerable situations.

• • The power of For the Helpers
    In addition, 'For the Helpers' has the power to stand on its own and to name the value of the platform. The name suggests a place where people can ask the question 'How do I help a victim?' and can fulfill the promise 'So you know how to help a victim'.