The issue that ITV faced was that its family of channels lacked clear and distinctive personalities on air which meant that viewers and advertisers needed to work hard to understand what ITV might have to offer them. To begin to address this issue, ITV commissioned a large segmentation study to further understand the changing entertainment needs and attitudes of the UK consumer. During the course of this study they communicated with 6,000 viewers as well as holding company-wide workshops with staff to discuss how the ITV family should evolve to meet those needs.

Once the results of this study had been fully analysed, Red Bee were briefed to create an overall brand architecture for the ITV network and to rebrand the family of channels on air. ITV knew they wanted to maintain their heartland audience but also needed to encourage those audiences who were deserting their channels to re-appraise what ITV had to offer. The overall proposition for the ITV network brand was defined through consumer research and strategic work by M+C Saatchi advertising agency as ‘TV to talk about’ given the typically engaging nature of ITV programming and its inclusiveness which can unite a wide range of people.

Research had shown that the previous ITV logo was outdated and did not embody the sense of warmth and connectivity that ITV felt was important. Red Bee created a logo solution that enabled each channel to stand out on its own but also ensured that all channels were obviously from the same network.

All of the ITV channels had previously used variations of blue and yellow colouring which meant they weren’t easily distinguishable from one another. ITV wanted to make the digital channels feel very distinct and demonstrate that they each had a clear offering to different groups of viewers.

Red Bee felt that given ITV’s stature in the UK television marketplace and the need to embody new brand values that it was important to create a bespoke font as part of the re-brand that would be used in all marketing and all platforms.

ITV 1 connects with everyone because its programming captures the whole range of human emotions. Red Bee’s creative idea for the channel idents explores the richness of these emotions and how they can mean different things to different people. For example, happiness might mean eating a giant piece of chocolate cake for one person, to another it could be feeling the warmth of the sun on their face. The ITV 1 logo opens out at the start of each ident to encapsulate the emotion in each scene and demonstrate that ITV 1 brings you all these emotions in its programming. The logo device is also taken through into the on screen design elements for the channel (e.g. promotion end boards, menus) in a bold and clear design that ensures that the programming shines as ‘hero’.

The ITV 1 idents aired for the first time from 9.25am on Monday 16 January 2006.