our blog

June 17, 2009

Preparing a Brand for the New Conversational Marketplace

It was a perfect marriage, the merger of MVP Health Care and Preferred Care, two mid-sized organizations coming together to create a $2 billion regional company with 1,700 employees. Each was well known and well liked in its respective service area. Each had resources, products and market positions the other could benefit from.

Combined, the companies hoped they could do more than simply offer a regional alternative to national players. They hoped the combined company would be strong enough to out-innovate the competition and create a product set more relevant to the most stressed small business and the most demanding large ones.

To initiate our Brand Amp strategy, we dug deeply into the corporate cultures of both MVP Health Care and Preferred Care to discover what fundamentals made the two organizations alike – and so popular. We interviewed executives and employees and examined current research on members, employer groups, providers and brokers. We also analyzed both organizations’ current brand and positioning strategies, product strengths and consumer perceptions.

What emerged through a series of meetings (internal and with the client) was a brand opportunity built on the concept of wellness, defined innovatively as personal health and empowerment for members, and financial health and cost control among employer groups.

Media Logic delivered a unified brand platform that included the brand promise, brand benefit, brand personality and positioning. We also designed a new logo and graphic standards system (here is a short video showing the collaborative process employed by our Design team). Plus, we produced a new website design, including site maps, wireframes, Flash elements, HTML/CSS templates and a development guide.

The companies were officially brought under a single brand umbrella on April 30, 2009. Shortly after, the ML team that worked on the project presented their process for developing the brand to all ML employees to share and discuss brand development best practices. The presentation room below shows the graphical timeline constructed to demonstrate the project flow.