The Happy Puzzle Company is a UK leader in educational games, toys and puzzles. Gavin Ucko, Founder and CEO explains: ‘We’ve been in the business for 25 years and our ethos has always been based on promoting family play and developing thinking skills. Recently, and in an increasingly cluttered market, we recognised the importance of standing out from the crowd. How do you give your customers a reason to shop with you, rather than rivals? As a company, we wanted to identify, pinpoint and articulate a message which focuses on what sets us apart from the competition, through the impact we believe we make on society. Through a Social Purpose’.

Recently, The Happy Puzzle Company’s senior team were taken through Verity London’s JumpStart programme. Ucko says, ‘The real value of the programme is the way in which it focuses a team bubbling with ideas and enthusiasm. On a day-to-day basis, we ourselves understand what we do, but we quickly realised that developing a Social Purpose would enable others to see what we see, and in so doing, give them a reason to jump on board as loyal, engaged customers’.

The company currently works with over 13,000 schools in the UK and has specialist experience in helping children with dyslexia and dyspraxia, as well as gifted and talented children seeking a greater challenge. He continues, ‘I don’t think any of us expected to end up with the Social Purpose we did. But it’s brilliant and we’re all excited to move forwards with it. Like any strong mission statement, we believe it encapsulates what we do and why, but more importantly, ties seamlessly into the very core of our business. It is relevant to our products and addresses a very real and important societal concern for our customers. The organic way in which the JumpStart programme develops, enabled us to strategically sift through a mountain of ideas until we reached where we needed to be. It’s not something we could have achieved alone’.

Ucko reflects: ‘The JumpStart programme, including a facilitated workshop, needs to be seen as an investment and a journey. It’s a process that works, but it needs a team that is engaged and prepared to think inwardly and outwardly in equal measure. The brilliance of the programme is that you realise that your Social Purpose is sat in front of you every day, doing great things, yet not necessarily underlying your daily existence.’

The Happy Puzzle Company is continuing to work with Verity London on a plan for implementing and communicating its new Social Purpose.

Ucko concludes: ‘I don’t think any of us could have foreseen how powerfully what we discovered would come to underpin everything that we do. Discovering your Social Purpose is not about finding your USP. It’s about tunnelling through every aspect of what you do in order to find the absolutely beautiful picture’

For information on our JumpStart Programme, email info@veritylondon.co.uk or give us a call on 020 84458324