Written by: Dana Wisniewski, M.S. | Marketing Manager at AdvantageHealth
Does your corporate wellness program need a rebrand? Maybe you’re scratching your head and asking yourself if your wellness program is even branded in the first place.
When you think of successful brands, large organizations such as Target, Apple, or Starbucks might come to mind. Organizations that spend millions of dollars on professional marketing and advertising agencies. But you can easily integrate some of their best practices into your wellness program brand.
Here’s a quick assessment: Are you using consistent fonts (no more than 2 – 3 font families) and colors (both primary and accent) every time you create a different marketing or communication piece? Do you have a basic design system that defines how a flyer or other common communication piece should look? Can your employees easily recognize your wellness program name and logo? If you answered no to any of these questions, keep reading.
Here’s three reasons why branding is powerful:
A brand is the story of people headed in a direction, inviting you to journey with them.
Branding adds meaning and clarity.
Your brand helps you connect with employees (your customer) emotionally.
Choosing Your Wellness Program Name.
Branding starts with choosing the right wellness program name. How much creative energy went into creating your wellness program name? Did one person choose it or a committee? Is there an interesting backstory about why or how that name was chosen? Do your employees easily remember the name and recognize the logo? Maybe you should ask them.
Use employee surveys or focus group feedback to create word clouds.
Use your organization’s website to determine key words used frequently.
For example, one organization we recently worked with on branding services needed help getting started with this process. After a careful review and assessment of their website, our marketing team determined that their frequently used words included: transforming, authentic, solutions, creations and journey, with some of these words being used eight or more times on the “home” page, “about us” page, and “vision / mission” page. Next, we strategically integrated these key words into a wellness program names such as WellCreations, Authentic Wellness, Transforming Wellness, WellSolutions and more.
Developing Your Wellness Program Tagline.
Taglines add clarity to what your wellness program does, how it does it or who it does it for.
Get inspiration from the organization’s website, mission statement, vision, culture, etc.
Consider using powerful verbs, such as “empowering, inspiring, engaging, creating,” etc.
The organization that needed help with their program name also needed help with their tagline. We used the process listed above to come up with ideas that integrated additional key words such as:
Invest in your health and well-being.
Taking care of others starts with taking care of yourself.
Building total well-being.
Creating healthy solutions for your body,mind and spirit.
Create meaningful change in your health and well-being.
Empowering you to take action to improve your health and well-being.
These wellness program names and taglines were then presented to the organization’s wellness committee who chose their favorite program name and tagline. Next, we developed their visual branding including logo, colors, fonts and design systems.
Developing the visual elements of brand identity for your wellness program:
Logo
Color Palette
Typography (Fonts)
Design System (How will a basic flyer look?)
Photography / Graphics.
Keys to good branding:
Distinct: It catches your audience’s attention.
Memorable: It makes a visual impact.
Scalable and Flexible: It can grow and evolve with the brand.
Cohesive: Each piece complements the brand identity.
Easy to Apply: It’s intuitive and clear for designers.
The process behind brand identity:
1) Research & Discovery: Create a brand persona by asking questions:
Who is the audience?
Know your employees’ (or target audience’s) needs, wants, and values.How will your target the employees with higher risk factors that may not want to participate?
What is the existing brand?
Ask your employees and management teams what their current perception is of the wellness program brand. This could be a simple survey or a small representative focus group.Determine how you want the brand to evolve. Is it still reflecting the direction your wellness program is striving toward?
2) Visual Ideation: use employee surveys or feedback to create word clouds.
Translates text to visual concepts. There are many free programs that are available online just for this.
3) Logo
Make sure the black & white logo is just as powerful as the color logo.Use your internal marketing & communications department, AdvantageHealth, college students, crowdsourcing or online programs for your logo design.
4) Color Palates
A good color palette is clean and flexible.Allow enough choices to be creative but not enough to overwhelm.Includes primary, complementary, and accent colors.Generally, 3 – 6 colors is best.
5) Typography (fonts)
Should communicate the brand persona effectively.Limit the font families to 2 – 3.
If you need a rebrand, AdvantageHealth can help.
Learn More or Get Started:
Email Kristine Keykal at kkeykal@advantagehealth.com to get started or call 612.823.4470 (select option “1”).
Since 2001, Minnesota-based AdvantageHealth has been delivering award-winning employee wellbeing programs and fitness center design & management throughout the U.S.
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