JCI (Junior Chamber International) is a global member organisation focused on developing leaders for a changing world. Over 200.000 members aged between 18 and 40 from over 100 countries engage in local chapters to create lasting impact on themselves and the world around them. They are volunteering on projects in four areas of opportunity: business & networking, personal development, international cooperation and community impact.
the challenge
Founded in 1915 in the US, JCI has become a global organisation with sustainable impact. As it aims to attract young leaders, active citizens and aspiring entrepreneurs to become engaged members, the organization needs to keep evolving its narrative in order to speak to today’s generation and those of the future – meanwhile telling a complex brand story based on the four pillars of its activities.
the insights
Generation Z and later – although very engaged in nature – struggle to find their way to membership organizations such as JCI. The challenge lies in making the shift from organization centered thinking towards an impact based narrative that actively speaks to internal and external stakeholders. Furthermore, as part of the partnership between JCI and the UN, the latter requested a rebrand in order to remove its logo from the existing JCI brand identity.
the solution
After a worldwide selection procedure, Pavlov was granted the rebranding of Junior Chamber International by a special committee, founded to oversee and coordinate the process and prepare for the approval by vote on the 2025 world congress. We started with an in-depth analysis of the organization, by launching a multilingual member survey in order to gain insights in the brand perception, preferred narrative and desired outcome of the rebrand. Additionally, hundreds of members from around the globe were invited to participate in moderated online focus groups, enabling us to obtain in-depth insights in how internal stakeholders wanted to see the brand evolution and find out about their priorities and expectations regarding the eventual implementation.
Based on our brand analysis, we started developing potential scenarios for a full rebrand, retaining concepts and elements depicting the 110 year old legacy of the brand whilst inciting an evolution of aspects in need of modernisation. Using stakeholder insights, the choice was made to retain the “shield” from the existing brand icon as a key element in developing the new identity. The cyan blue used as a dominant colour in the JCI brand for decades was retained as a distinctive part as well.
The final version of the new brand identity was validated by an audience consisting of National Presidents, advisors and board members all over the world and submitted for voting during the general assembly on the JCI World Congress 2025 in Tunis, Tunisia. The penultimate approval of the identity concept started a new phase in the rebranding process: creating a wide range of assets, easy to use templates and ample training possibilities for individual members. Guidelines and examples were compiled in an international brand manual for easy use in daily practice.
