Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM)

Futureproofing a 100-Year Brand: How CIM and Cantarus Redefined Purpose, Platform & Proposition

The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) is the world’s leading professional body for marketers, representing over 30,000 members and 3,000 Chartered Marketers worldwide. Founded in 1911, CIM supports, develops, and champions the marketing profession through recognised qualifications, training, and professional accreditation. By promoting marketing as a force for business success and societal progress, CIM empowers marketers to thrive, lead with integrity, and drive long-term impact.

To better reflect its renewed brand and value proposition, CIM partnered with Cantarus to deliver one of the most significant digital transformations in its history.

Silver Award of Distinction – Communicator Awards

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The Challenge

As the world’s leading professional body for marketers, CIM set out to “walk the walk” – to lead by example with a digital experience that reflected the same standards of excellence it promotes across the profession.

However, their existing digital setup was no longer meeting the organisation’s needs. The website no longer reflected CIM’s wider organisational goals, evolving value proposition, or increasingly international audience. Key user journeys had become fragmented, and content was difficult to manage and personalise at scale.

To continue inspiring and supporting the next generation of marketers, CIM needed a modern, accessible, and future-ready platform capable of uniting its diverse audience – from individual marketers to enterprise-level organisations.

The Partnership

Cantarus was first engaged for a technical advisory project to shape a roadmap for transformation and support their internal development resource. Following this, CIM extended the partnership to include user-centred design and content marketing work streams, recognising the value of a multi-disciplinary, cross-team approach.

Together, we set out to reimagine CIM’s digital presence – creating a visually compelling, user-focused experience underpinned by robust technical foundations, a unified design system, and a content strategy crafted to bring their revitalised brand to life.

Our Solution

User Centred Design

CIM’s previous website was structured around the organisation rather than its users – a common challenge for membership bodies. Member benefits were difficult to find, the design had become inconsistent, and the overall experience no longer reflected the modern, dynamic brand CIM had evolved into. To reframe the experience, we set out to design a platform that put people, purpose, and progression at the centre.

User Journeys with Purpose

Our discovery work focused on understanding what members and prospective marketers actually needed from the website. Through journey mapping, we redefined the key paths — including becoming a member, joining through qualifications, and registering for a free account. Each was reimagined to feel intuitive, personalised, and outcome-focused, ensuring every interaction clearly demonstrated the value of CIM membership.

Design Grounded in Clarity and Emotion

CIM’s new visual direction balances professionalism with warmth – human without relying on stock imagery. Drawing inspiration from modern, digital-first brands, we introduced a refined palette, accessible typography, and high-value design flourishes that enhance usability and delight. The approach embodies “radical simplification”: fewer pages, clearer messaging, and a focus on helping users reach their goals faster.

A System for Consistency and Growth

We created a comprehensive design system to unify visuals, interactions, and UX patterns across CIM’s digital estate. This not only resolved long-standing inconsistencies but empowered internal teams to maintain quality and accessibility in future iterations. Designed with flexibility in mind, the system will scale easily as CIM continues to innovate across its digital ecosystem.

Through this user-centred redesign, CIM’s online presence now feels cohesive, purposeful, and alive – a true reflection of the organisation’s mission to inspire, support, and elevate marketers at every stage of their journey.

Back

CIM’s ambition to lead by example demanded more than a website refresh – it required a complete rethinking of how content was structured, managed, and experienced. Our content marketing team delivered an end-to-end approach encompassing audit, strategy, copywriting, and population, ensuring every decision was guided by data, user insight, and brand alignment.

Audit & Insight

We began with a comprehensive audit of CIM’s existing site, analysing 12 months of analytics and search data alongside SEO performance. The objective was to understand what was working, what wasn’t, and how the site could better serve its audiences. Years of accumulated content had created duplication, inconsistency, and confusion. The outcome was a clear, prioritised roadmap – effectively a digital “spring clean” – that focused attention on content worth keeping, improving, or retiring.

Strategy & Structure

With a cleaner foundation and a refreshed vision, we redefined CIM’s core content pillars to reflect its modern purpose and member value. The once fragmented “content hub” – split across blogs, quick reads, news, and editorials – was streamlined into a single, cohesive Articles section, supported by a simplified taxonomy and improved user experience. Recognising CIM’s strength in producing multimedia content, we also integrated webinars and podcasts more effectively, introducing transcripts and translations for accessibility and global reach.

Copywriting & Collaboration

To ensure CIM’s new site communicated clearly and confidently, we partnered closely with internal teams and subject matter experts to rewrite and refine key pages. Each session focused on aligning tone, message, and intent with the organisation’s refreshed brand and value propositions – capturing the professionalism and energy of modern marketing. This co-created approach ensured content felt authentic, owned, and future-proof.

Content Population & Best Practice

Guided by the audit and new information architecture, every page was rebuilt to make full use of CIM’s updated design system and flexible component library. This ensured content was not only engaging and on-brand, but also structurally consistent across the entire site. To safeguard editorial quality as the site continues to grow, Umbraco Workflows now provides clear governance around publishing – ensuring content from internal and external contributors follows consistent standards, review processes, and best practice.

With this stronger foundation in place, CIM is also well positioned to introduce advanced personalisation through Umbraco Engage. By pairing structured content with first-party behavioural insight, Engage will enable CIM to deliver tailored experiences that guide members towards the qualifications, CPD, and resources most relevant to their professional goals.

Futureproofing CIM wasn’t a digital project – it was an organisational shift. Together with Cantarus, we redefined our purpose, platform, and proposition for the next generation of marketers. What set Cantarus apart was their ability to challenge, collaborate, and co-create with us at every stage – helping us deliver a digital experience that finally reflects the authority, integrity, and inspiration of our brand.

James Tayler Director of Technology, Chartered Institute of Marketing

Technical advisory and integrated development

CIM partnered with Cantarus to shape the technical foundation of their new Umbraco platform – one that could support long-term scalability, performance, and ease of management. Our role combined hands-on development with technical leadership, ensuring every decision aligned with CIM’s digital ambitions and internal capability.

A Unified Development Approach

We established a joint delivery model that brought CIM’s developers and project managers together with our Umbraco specialists from day one. Working in agile sprints, both teams operated as one – sharing stand-ups, retrospectives, and delivery milestones to maintain transparency and momentum. This integrated approach fostered knowledge exchange while keeping progress rapid and focused on quality outcomes.

Technical Leadership and Implementation

Cantarus led on complex implementation areas, providing architectural guidance and introducing modern best practices to enhance efficiency and maintainability. By pairing closely with CIM’s developers throughout the build, we ensured that new skills, workflows, and standards became embedded in their processes – setting the team up for sustainable success beyond go-live.

A Platform Built for Growth

The result is a technically robust, enterprise-grade Umbraco platform that delivers flexibility for ongoing evolution. Through close collaboration and shared accountability, we not only delivered a high-quality build but strengthened the foundation for CIM’s digital ecosystem to grow confidently into the future.

Transformation is never just a project; it’s a shared mindset. Working with Cantarus, we’ve built more than a new platform; we’ve built the foundations for CIM’s next 100 years. The result is a digital experience that feels human, purposeful, and ready for the future of marketing.

Martin Camilleri Head of Digital, Chartered Institute of Marketing

Future Forward

Cantarus continues to partner with CIM through Timebank support, optimisation initiatives, and shared thought-leadership activities – including joint speaking at MemberWise Digital Excellence Conference 2025 and planned video and podcast features.

Together, we’re ensuring CIM’s digital estate remains as dynamic as the profession it represents.

Ready to elevate your brand presence like CIM?

Our Creative Director, Rob Helsby, would love to chat with you about your branding and user experience needs.

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