Crime Stoppers Toronto‘s rebrand started with the pursuit of a better, less corporate logo. It ended with an entirely new visual identity and a radical overhaul of its reward system.

The 36-year-old anonymous tips program this week unveiled its new visual identity and tagline: “See it, say it, stop it,” replacing its previous slogan, “Say it here.” Timed to coincide with Crime Stoppers Month, the rebrand was developed by Toronto’s Community Agency.

The new visual identity is constructed around the organization’s signature black, white and red colour scheme, accompanied by quotation marks that are rearranged to directly reflect the new slogan (ie: eyes for “see it” and a shield for “stop it”).

The quotation marks are visual shorthand for the concept of speaking up, says Joe Nanni, vice-president, creative director of Community. “We played with the form a bit and found that they could also be rearranged to look like eyes or a shield, and the phrase came naturally.”

Community also developed hats and hoodies bearing the Crime Stoppers logo that will be distributed to volunteers and other community members. “We wanted something that people would want to be part of,” says Nanni. “We didn’t want it to look like it was specifically related to law enforcement. The more graphically appealing it is, the more people are going to say ‘I want this.'”

The agency is also developing additional creative elements, including a pair of videos that are currently in pre-production.

The most notable change to the Crime Stoppers Toronto program, however, is its pledge to reinvest funds earmarked for the program into community programs rather than individual rewards.

Toronto Crime Stoppers has received nearly 166,000 tips since its inception in 1984. But while the number of tips it receives has remained constant year over year, the amount of people who actually collect the rewards has steadily fallen. According to Crime Stoppers Toronto coordinator Dimitrios Tsianos, just 15-17% of tipsters collected a cash reward last year.

“We looked at how people used the service, what motivated them to give a tip and how many rewards were claimed, and we found that people were far more motivated by doing the right thing,” says Tsianos, who initiated the rebrand. “Changing behaviour is far more challenging than changing a logo, and that’s what we were more interested in.”