SHIFT was formed in 2022 by a partnership of organisations based at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park: London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC), Lendlease, Plexal, Here East, UAL’s London College of Fashion, Loughborough University London and UCL East. Between them they could offer innovators something few places can: a 560-acre park to trial ideas in, world-class venues, universities, innovation hubs and four local boroughs.
What SHIFT lacked was a story outsiders could follow. The existing brand spoke mainly to startups, while the people SHIFT most needed to win over, from corporate sponsors and universities to public funders and community groups, couldn’t see what was in it for them. LLDC brought Outfly in to define what SHIFT is, who it serves and why they should join, then to build the brand and marketing that would take it to market.
We know the area well. Outfly’s offices have always been in east London, from Plexal and Here East to The Trampery.
We started with a Brandscape: workshops with SHIFT’s leadership to capture how they saw it, then a map of the five audiences it had to convince. Each got a persona: Josephine, a seed to Series A founder; Geoff, chief sustainability officer at a multinational; Sandra, who manages university partnerships; Grant, who allocates public sector funding; and Abdi, who runs a community organisation. For each one we set out the pains SHIFT relieves, the gains it creates and what it stands for in their eyes, from a launchpad for Josephine to a strategic network for Geoff and an outcome catalyst for Grant.
That work became SHIFT’s communications strategy. It gave SHIFT a tagline, London’s Innovation Catalyst, and a one-line definition: a catalyst for east London’s innovators, bringing together business, academia, government and local communities to find and scale solutions to the major challenges of city life. It also split the offer into two clear products: the Testbed, which opens the park up for real-world trials, and the Ecosystem, a cross-sector network of partners, investors and expertise. Every audience got its own headline, elevator pitch and messages for each stage of awareness, so a founder and a council funding officer heard the same SHIFT in the terms that mattered to them.
We turned the strategy into a sales deck and one-pager, then into campaigns aimed at specific audiences: a free membership drive inviting founders to join east London’s innovation ecosystem, The Turing Building Connected by SHIFT with Lendlease at Stratford Cross, an event with the London Borough of Newham on mobilising mass housing retrofit, and the Urban Frontiers showcase with UCL.
To earn the trust of policymakers, universities and investors, SHIFT needed to look like the serious cross-sector institution it is, not another startup programme. We elevated the identity around the new strategy, starting with a wordmark that shows several networks held together by a key, SHIFT itself, set alongside the line London’s Innovation Catalyst.
Shapes cut from the logo become a pattern system that frames and masks photography across posters, social posts and event graphics. Green stands for growth and renewal and blue for trust and technology, with a brighter supporting palette to bring energy to campaigns. Poppins and Public Sans keep every touchpoint clean, and a full set of brand guidelines lets each founding partner apply the identity consistently.
A brilliant job. I’m really happy with everything you’ve done. I think you nailed it, so thank you!
Francesca Colloca, Head of Innovation, SHIFT
With the story and brand in place, we rebooted SHIFT’s website, which relaunched in autumn 2023 as SHIFT opened the first challenge of its Future Industries Demonstrator, a programme funded by the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. We then ran the campaigns for its first three challenges: Natural Cities, Sustainable Structures and Food Systems. Each one had its own launch creative, paid social and search, and application funnels, and each cohort was introduced with portraits and spotlights on the startups and what they were building, from ELMC’s circular mushroom farm to Material Index’s reclaimed materials brokerage.
Across the three challenges the campaigns drew 265 first-stage and 138 second-stage applications. For Challenge 3 alone, paid social reached 268,800 people and delivered 9,303 landing page views at £0.16 a click. As SHIFT’s official marketing and communications partner, we also ran its free membership drive, which had onboarded more than 120 members by March 2024.
In November 2024, as the third Demonstrator cohort came to an end, we ran a strategy workshop with the SHIFT team to plan the year ahead. Together we sharpened the offer around what only SHIFT can provide, namely access to the park’s physical and digital assets, help through regulation and red tape, and real users for trials, and explored ideas for shorter, faster programmes for founders and corporate partners, such as IDEAHacks, hackathons and launchpads built around the park.
Outfly, a London brand, marketing and product agency. Commissioned by London Legacy Development Corporation, Outfly defined SHIFT’s audiences, messaging and positioning as London’s Innovation Catalyst, elevated its brand, rebooted its website and, as its official marketing and communications partner, ran its membership, event and Future Industries Demonstrator campaigns.
SHIFT is an innovation agency at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in east London. Formed in 2022 by LLDC, Lendlease, Plexal, Here East, UAL’s London College of Fashion, Loughborough University London and UCL East, it helps innovators trial and scale solutions to the climate emergency, health and wellbeing, and urban mobility.
Five audiences: startups and SMEs, corporates and sponsors, universities, public sector funders and local community groups. Outfly gave each a persona, a value proposition and its own messaging, built on two products: the Testbed, which opens the park up for real-world trials, and the Ecosystem, a cross-sector network of partners, investors and expertise.
The Future Industries Demonstrator campaigns for SHIFT’s first three open innovation challenges drew 265 first-stage and 138 second-stage applications, and the membership drive had onboarded more than 120 members by March 2024. For Challenge 3 alone, paid social reached 268,800 people at £0.16 a click.
