If Your Program Was a Color, What Color Would It be?

Background:  Branding has traditionally been associated with commercial products and services; however, health communication practitioners are beginning to use branding with more frequency. Branding is even more important in health marketing, as known brands tend to be more trustworthy and resonate better with their target audience(s).  Additionally, health decisions also tend to have greater implications for consumers than others decisions further demonstrating the importance of a strong brand. Branding can also be used to focus office values, differentiate between competitors and improve employee communication with stakeholders.

Program background:  Last year, the National Vaccine Program Office underwent a new branding endeavor to focus messaging around what the office does and to update and refresh our look.  As part of the process, we conducted stakeholder and staff interviews and focus groups as well as other research to develop both a verbal and visual identity. Our process yielded position statements, elevator speeches, a brand promise, value propositions and other tools to aid in presenting a simple, focused and consistent brand. It also provided opportunities for lessons learned and a case study of refreshing the identity of a public health office. In this presentation, the speaker will outline benefits gained from the developing and implementing a brand, showcase examples that highlight a successful branding process, and share lessons learned.

Evaluation Methods and Results:  To create the brand, we conducted formative research to assess stakeholder and employee knowledge and perceptions. In developing our branding strategy, there were several issues that our process revealed, such as a lack of comprehensive understanding of what NVPO does. Now that we are implementing the brand, we plan to conduct interviews to measure associations stakeholders hold for our products and the office as a whole as well as our employee satisfaction with the brand identity and their ability to use the tools developed to meet previous areas of frustration. Results will be shared at the conference.

Conclusions:  Thoughtful and strategic branding efforts to educate target audiences are critical to increasing acceptance of and involvement in our work.  This is especially important for an organization like our office, which specializes in coordination and collaboration and needs a variety of stakeholders to come together to work on complex issues.  It is crucial to our mission that our stakeholders know who we are and the work we do. Our refreshed, brand elements are expected to aid in furthering the understanding and appreciation of our mission and communicate a recognizable promise to those we interact with.

Implications for research and/or practice:  Entities looking to improve stakeholder engagement, awareness and recognizably can learn from this case study. As we transition to an age when health information is at one’s fingertips, having a strong brand identity becomes increasing important and should be considered a goal for any group interested in fostering relationships or targeting messages.