Whether launching or re-energizing a health and wellness brand and business – everything starts with a unifying brand idea. It’s a central idea that guides, inspires and threads everything the business does together – internally and externally, across its words and actions, products and services, design and experience, marketing and communications. This idea represents the destination that the brand wants to reach to fulfill its destiny. And it does this by unifying the brand’s inside and outside audiences to reach their personal potential. The idea is a north star for the brand to look, speak and act as one. And the more unified the brand, the more powerful it can be in leaving its mark. Building Brand Identity Building a brand with this kind of magnetic pull – with the power to leave its mark on consumers, business and planet – starts long before elements of color, type, design and imagery are on the table. It begins with a foundational strategy and identity that requires a combination of soul searching and discovery. This search and discovery requires looking at your business inside and out, and people inside and out (what inspires them, motivates them, drives them) to unearth insights that will help reveal the unique reason why customers should choose you. It’s about understanding why and how your business fits into their life and solves a problem in some kind of heretofore underserved way. In short, why they should care. In finding your why, the consumer need and the brand idea then become two sides of the same coin. Making this connection is only achieved when a brand taps into a customer need that’s rooted in both function and feeling. Function is easier of the two to spot (e.g. saving time, simplifying, reducing cost). But feeling is below the surface (e.g. reducing anxiety, providing hope, personally rewarding) and requires exploration beyond the obvious. But when you unearth this emotion, you create the opportunity for a stronger and longer-lasting connection. Modern Consumer Expectations Today’s consumers judge and choose brands based on a more expansive and proactive agenda, beyond what a brand says and sells. Message and story are still important, but they’re no longer enough. Reasons are twofold. First, thanks to the internet and the megaphone of social media, consumers have access to a vast amount of information about any business and the people who lead it. They know and care about how companies operate, source materials, produce products, treat their employees and value other consumers like them. And not only are they empowered with access, they have audiences to whom they can evangelize the brands they believe in and take to the mat and hold accountable the brands that fall short. Second, consumers seek purpose from the brands they support. Brands have always played a role in shaping consumer identity – whether the car you drive, the clothes you wear, the personal care items on your bathroom counter, or the clubs you play on the course. For better or worse, brands say something about you. But today, that identity factor goes far beyond the superficial. Exacerbated even further by the trifecta of medical, political and social events of the past couple years, consumers prefer to purchase products and services that allow them to act on their own values and beliefs. They want to live purposefully and they’re demanding that the brands they buy from not only tackle these issues directly but enable them to become agents of social change too. Reference this blog post: Wellness Branding: Building A Brand That Rises Above.  Branding Inspiration Here are a few examples of brands that are doing it right and living by their unifying brand ideas: Patagonia. Every time they engage with the consumer, they make it clear who they are, what they stand for and what they won’t stand for – build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis. And they live those beliefs in everything they do, including donating at least 1% of its sales to hundreds of grassroots environmental groups around the world. For Patagonia, being good is good business. Red Bull. Gives wings to people and ideas. Though a manufacturer of soft drinks, the company does so much more in terms of improving lives. It’s known for the support that it gives to a wide range of sporting activities and teams globally. By sponsoring these events, Red Bull contributes to the growth and development of societies as these sports are economically and socially beneficial. Wegman’s. Exists to “help you live a healthier, better life through food.”  Beyond selling its ingredients and food items, Wegmans offers interactive tools that support healthy eating routines. They enable a shopper to stay a step ahead through meal plans that inform their shopping, so they don’t have to wing it. The healthy meals emphasis and healthy eating guidelines are precisely what families and individuals need to live happier and healthier. Yeti. Treat all its clients to the ideal outdoor experiences that they long for. Yeti “Stories From The Wild” reinforce the durability of their items across multiple environments, and the company has specialized tools for any wild experiences that one would wish for. Its team of experts/brand ambassadors ensures that products are tested to leave customers confident and free to pursue their adventures. Lush. We Believe is an ethos that the company still lives and breathes nearly three decades after its founding, and one that will (according to its founders) continue to guide it well into the future. While freshest ingredients put their founders on a path to success, the company incorporates other principles such as naked packaging and handmade items free of animal testing elements. It also actively supports Diversity and Collective Consciousness. Lush believes it’s their responsibility to advocate for the environment, animals and people in need, as well as giving back to organizations locally and around the world. They do this through their Charity Pot program, ethical campaigns and people. Warby Parker was founded with a […]

Competing in the health and wellness category gets tougher every day. Segments are increasingly more crowded, are overlapping and converging and consumers are upping the ante on what they expect wellness brands to contribute – not only to their lives, but to society and the planet. Given this backdrop, it’s possible over time to become stuck or stalled. Helping a brand reset when it’s facing brand decline is a common problem that brand marketers grapple with every day. To create new energy when the momentum is lost – a rebranding, repositioning or brand refresh are all viable solutions. But before the operation can begin, there needs to be a full examination of the brand in order to identify the right course of action. When figuring out how to make a brand relevant again, you need to look at where the category, consumers and culture are going, but also back to what made your brand great in the first place. The best brand revitalizations are a careful balance of making something feel relevant and up to date without losing the brand’s integrity – who it is, what people associate with it and its enduring truth. Honing In On The Right Brand Building Solution All three of the aforementioned brand building solutions can help a company remain current, relevant and profitable. Individual circumstances dictate which strategic branding approach is the most appropriate. Each branding solution also requires a different level of organization-wide commitment. A Company Rebranding A company rebranding includes updating the brand identity, starting with name and logo. As all brand assets are on the table, it’s the most demanding of the three brand building directions. Examples of a company rebranding include Weight Watchers rebranding to WW (given today’s new definitions of health and wellness), Dunkin Donuts rebranding to Dunkin (to transform into a beverage-led, on-the-go brand) and CVS Caremark rebranding to CVS Health (to reflect its broader health commitment). One of our own Trajectory rebranding successes includes Cerebral Palsy of North Jersey rebranding as Pillar Care Continuum. A Brand Repositioning A company repositioning includes changing what customers associate with the brand. This typically entails a change in the brand’s promise and its personality to strengthen marketplace distinctiveness, image and reputation, along with updating marketing strategy. It does not include changing the company name. Examples include Old Spice (from old and stodgy to contemporary, category leader), Spotify (from free music to original content and curated playlists) and Taco Bell (from cheap Mexican food to youth lifestyle brand). A Brand Refresh A brand refresh is a reimagining of a brand’s look and feel for a business that is fundamentally strong but feels stale or outdated. And it can have a powerful, wide-ranging impact on business performance and employee connection. Depending on the company and the issues it’s facing, a brand refresh can include adjustments to culture, slogans, services, and visual and verbal language across a multitude of brand touchpoints. Two recent examples include Trajectory’s work for leading fertility benefits company Progyny, and our refresh of health services company The Wellness Way. Common Across All Three Strategic Brand Initiatives In any brand building initiative – whether company rebranding, repositioning or brand refresh – the starting point is your customer and the key problem your health or wellness brand can uniquely solve. To build relevance, you must understand your primary audience – beyond their demographics to their pain points, attitudes and behaviors. The ultimate goal for any branding initiative is to establish stronger engagement with a target audience. And more (emotionally) engaged customers translate to positive consumer behavior, sales and profitability. Pinpointing The Right Time For A Brand Refresh Here are a few indications that the time might be right for your company to consider a brand refresh (versus a complete company rebranding or repositioning). Of course, all of these factors below need to be taken into consideration, diagnosed and weighed before determining the right path forward. Growth Has Stalled It’s inevitable that all businesses experience stalled growth at some point. If you’ve stalled out and want to grow faster, a brand refresh can be the jolt of new brand energy you require. Of course, it’s necessary to go deep to find the root of the problem. External forces impacting this slowdown could include aggressive competition, changing industry dynamics and evolving customer priorities. Regardless, your brand differentiation has faded and you need to 1) bring customers back into the fold, 2) rejuvenate sales and 3) create renewed internal engagement companywide. Competition Has Changed Across multiple health and wellness segments, competitors are rewriting the rules of the game. Segments are overlapping, converging and being reimagined. Diversity and innovation are driving the industry forward and defining a new era of wellness for the modern consumer. Allbirds is changing behavior within Athleisure and Fashion. Mirror (purchased by Lululemon) is disrupting Fitness. Parsley Health is reimagining the future of healthcare. Seed Health is stewarding the future of how people use bacteria to restore human and planetary health. Ginger is changing the mindset about mental healthcare. The list goes on. If your brand is starting to blend in, then you’re going to need new and unique ways to recapture your audience’s interest. Brand Attention Has Fallen Off A great brand gives your customers a reason to sit up and take notice. If you know that customers are just as happy with your products as they’ve always been, but you’re not gaining ground in the market, this could be a sign that your brand has lost its appeal. There are plenty of ways to tell whether your audience has pulled back from your branding, and the first indicator is that you’re witnessing a slowdown in sales. Regaining brand momentum could be something as simple as refreshing brand design and brand messaging. Your Company Has Evolved A brand is typically born around a particular product or service. As the business evolves, new products, services and experiences are introduced. These changes mean that the company has to reimagine the brand’s identity to align with the business […]

When medical practice competitors are just a click away and prospective patients rely on a website to judge an organization’s healthcare services, digital marketing strategy becomes paramount to success.  As the need to return patients to your practice coincides with slimmer marketing budgets – knowing the keys to effective, measurable, digital marketing are more important than ever. What are the digital marketing strategies that are making a difference in medical practice patient acquisition and patient engagement? And how can medical practices make real human connections with patients through digital marketing? Read on for these answers. Digital Marketing Backdrop This chart from We Are Social and Hootsuite underscores just how pervasive mobile, internet and social media use has become – spurred on by the events of this past year.  As a percent of the worlds population of 7.83 billion at the start of 2021: Mobile usage equated to 66.6 percent of the world’s total population Internet usage equated to 59.5 percent of the world’s total population Social media equated to more than 53 percent of the world’s total population, growing by 490 million over the past 12 months   As mobile has become our first screen (accounting for a greater amount of people’s time than live TV), users around the world spend more than 4 hours a day using their phones. 70 percent of all usage comes from time spent in social and communications apps (45 percent) and time spent in video and entertainment apps (26 percent). All trends point to healthcare providers needing to prepare for a digital-first future. Within this shifting landscape, the new digital consumer is embracing more digital products and services, adopting different modes of communication and forming online communities. And what’s more, they don’t plan on giving these behaviors up. Digital Marketing Begins With Your Medical Practice Website To attract new patients, creating a stellar website customer experience must be made a top priority. When not a focus, a lackluster website can actually become a liability to practice growth. Here are some common website issues that we see over the course of our work with our health and wellness clients (and specifically working alongside medical practices): A generally outdated site. Prospective patients can easily tell if your website hasn’t kept up with the times. If they find that yours is lacking – if it’s not clean, well designed, well written – this can actually hinder your ability to grow your practice. A clean and minimally designed website is easier to scan and understand, more accessible, loads faster, provides a satisfying prospective patient experience – and most importantly, builds confidence and brand trust. Branding that distinguishes your organization. Your unique value proposition (what sets your practice apart) should be front and center on your site – and be reinforced throughout your website copy,  design and navigation. Visual branding and voice should also be consistent across your website. Consistency builds credibility and reinforces professionalism, and helps prospects trust you. Making your website mobile responsive. As mobile screens are smaller, navigation and CTAs need to be optimized accordingly. For example, try to keep the main CTA on the main screen as well as at the bottom of the screen. Also, vertical scrolling is more effective than horizontal. It is important to optimize the e-commerce function on the mobile version of your design as well, giving your customers instant access. Ensuring easy site navigation.  Among your top priorities when you think website design is the ease of navigation. Your visitors will use the navigation to find any relevant information they are looking for. Without clear navigation, you end up with disappointed visitors that exit your website for better alternatives. A great navigation experience is clear and predictable, user-friendly and simple, with a design that uses harmonious colors and shapes for a pleasant visual experience. Adding strong and clear CTAs. A call-to-action is how you get prospective patients through the sales funnel. Without clear CTAs, your prospective patients have no idea where they are supposed to click next. Ultimately, a well-designed website has clear CTAs that push conversion rates higher. It is the job of the user experience team to do a lot of A/B testing on various landing pages to see what works best. Great CTAs are easily visible without disrupting the user’s browsing experience and contain an easy clear message such as, “Download for Free,” or “Learn More.” Making your site accessible to all. Ideally, all of your website visitors and prospective patients should be able to use your website. It shouldn’t matter what hardware or software they use. This is the main concept behind accessible website design. In general, when websites are properly designed and coded, people with disabilities can use them. According to the World Health Organization, roughly 15% of the population is dealing with some form of disability, which many times prevents them from utilizing the web. Optimized search engine optimization (SEO). It’s clear that consumers are searching for practices online. But the ability to find your website hinges on on-page SEO (content optimization), technical SEO (crawling and indexing) and off-page SEO (referring domains, inbound links, website promotion). SEO is an area in which you should seek assistance from outside professionals who can audit your website and provide recommendations to ensure that your website copy includes keywords and phrases that will help your practice appear at the top of search results. Your website serves as your first impression for a growing number of patients. What they find plays a significant role in whether the choose to seek care from you or seek it elsewhere. Your bottom line depends on your website’s performance. Strengthening Digital Dialogue Through Social Media The real and most valuable promise of social media has always been the opportunity to create a two-way dialogue between brand and audience. Now more than ever, patients want—and expect—medical practices to engage in dialogue and to provide answers to some very pressing questions. This value-building digital marketing dialogue through social media can take many forms, including: Being as simple […]

It’s funny how things come at you in waves. I wrote this blog post earlier this week – Health and Wellness Branding Trends in 2022. A couple days later, I received two articles in my inbox from daily@oneama.com, which tackled a couple of the same subjects I wrote about in my blog. Both provide sound brand building inspiration. The first article is What A Raft of CPG Rebrands Portend for Marketer Priorities in 2022. The article speaks to how brand refreshes including those from M&M’s and Anheuser-Busch serve to remind brand marketers that they can connect purpose to brand identity – if it’s authentic.  As noted by Chris Kelly in the article, M&M’s and Anheuser-Busch unveiled brand refreshes earlier in January that look ahead to the new year and beyond. Both branding initiatives involved updating brand elements, from logos and mascots to typefaces and colors. But both initiatives also involved surrounding these updates with more strategic branding efforts. M&M’s Brand Refresh M&M’s modernized its mascots and put a greater emphasis on the ampersand in its logo –  to put a larger emphasis on inclusivity and belonging. But that’s just one element of a larger (genuine and authentic) brand program. The strategy begins with unifying messages (in M&M’s humorous brand voice), and spans advertising, retail stores, brand activations and the personas and appearance of M&M’s longstanding candy mascots. The company is backing up the effort with a commitment to increase a sense of belonging for 10 million people globally by 2025. The initiative will be tracked in part through a new M&M’s Fund encompassing financial support, mentorship and resources in the arts and entertainment industry. Here’s the supporting relaunch video: Anheuser-Busch Brand Refresh In the case of Anheuser-Busch, they’ve refined their “A-B Eagle” in a gold that mirrors the color of beer and barley. The logo, which features the eagle in flight and facing to the right, is intended to be more premium and forward-looking than before, reinforcing the company’s new global purpose, “To a Future with More Cheers. AB’s purpose centers on encouraging growth and creating shared value with consumers and partners; fostering innovation in its portfolio; advancing sustainability and playing a role in the economic recovery of the country by supporting communities. Here’s the video that supports the brand refresh: Assessing Efficacy of Branding Efforts As noted by Karthik Easwar, Associate teaching professor, Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business – For these efforts to take root, brand touch ups must be paired with tangible efforts that reinforce and communicate brand values — from sustainability to equity and inclusion — to consumers. Simply put, the refresh can’t stop at the logo. Both of these efforts reflect what’s critical about staking out brand purpose. Actions speak louder than words for today’s more values-driven consumers, and actions need to be ingrained across the organization from the inside-out. So they’re not just looked at as lip service. —————– The second article – How Americans ‘Cancel’ Brands, According to Forrester, appeared on mediapost.com. It relates to Trend #8 (Elevating Consciousness) from my post about Health and Wellness Branding Trends in 2022. The article recaps Forrester’s research to find out exactly how consumers “cancel” brands they no longer support. The number one action demonstrated by 61% of consumers is to stop buying the product. Other actions include no longer recommending it to others (45% of respondents), unfollowing the brand on social media (32%) and “calling it out” in personal posts on social media (20%). But more important is understanding the “why” behind these actions. Numerous recent studies reveal that consumers are becoming more active about pressuring brands whose products, services — and increasingly, policies and ideologies — don’t align with them. “In some cases, cancel culture is regarded as consequence culture — conscious appeals for accountability,” Vice President-Research Director Mike Proulx writes in a post on Forrester’s cited, adding, “In other cases, it’s slated as call-out culture — snap condemnations for ostracism.” As I wrote in my post – consumers have formed new expectations around brand purpose. They’ve elevated the importance of not only the environmental impact of a business but its stamp on everything from racial equality and other human rights to mental health, body positivity and politics. It’s nice to see these trends borne about by the above.          

As competition grows fiercer across the health and wellness landscape, branding becomes more important. Branding is the face of your business (strategically and aesthetically), the basis for customer engagement and employee engagement, and sets a business apart from competitors. Ultimately, branding is the sum of everything you do and stand for, and today’s modern consumers have expectations that extend beyond your outputs (your products and services), to the ways in which you do business. Which means that a snappy brand name, a nice logo and clever advertising are not enough to capture their interest. Add to that the challenges and upheaval caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on society and consumers, and you have a situation where even the most seasoned brand marketing teams are asking, “How do we stay relevant in the world following this unprecedented global crisis”? In this post, we explore nine trends that will impact the growth trajectory of health and wellness businesses in 2022. Some trends are more general and apply to all brands regardless of industry. Others are more specific to health and wellness. But all are integral to building a brand that people will love. Nine Health and Wellness Trends in 2022   1. Acting On Brand Purpose Brand purpose certainly isn’t a new topic anymore. But it’s here to stay, and arguably, more important for brands than ever before given events of the past couple of years. To clarify, while a company mission exemplifies what you do, purpose defines why you do it. But don’t expect a purpose statement alone to attract the attention of today’s discerning consumers. For wellness brands across the board, the new directive is that your actions must speak louder than your words – with a generally defined goal of improving the well-being of all stakeholders. Purpose-driven brands have a big intention that is inherently linked to the business, its objectives, and the way it operates.  Their beliefs and values are also clear. And this makes it easier for today’s more conscious consumers to get behind them and actively support them – with their loyalty and their advocacy. What’s most important when it comes to purpose is that it is authentic and baked into everything a brand does. It must be embedded into the business and the organizational culture. Because if brands are faking it, consumers can see through it, expose it, and ignite a backlash. Examples of brands living their purpose include: Nike, bringing inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world. Tesla, accelerating the world’s transition to sustainable energy. Life Is Good, spreading the power of optimism. Dove, encouraging women to embrace and develop a positive relationship with their unique beauty by promoting self-acceptance and body positivity. Starbuck’s inspiring and nurturing the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time. Proof That Purpose Creates Value There’s ample proof that purpose impacts business performance. Havas Media Group published an annual global report (300,000 people, 1500+ brands, 15 industries, 33 countries) and found that meaningful brands (those with an active purpose), outperformed the stock market by 206% over the last 10 years. They also found that meaningful brands increased their KPI’s by 137%. 2. Authenticity Customer trust has hit an all-time low in the past couple of years. In the 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer, it was reported that only 34% of consumers trust brands they buy from. Creating an authentic brand – demonstrated through actions that align with brand values – is critical for modern businesses. Because in the absence of trust, customers start looking for other brands they can trust. A Stackla report (via Social Media Today) on consumer content revealed that 86% of shoppers view authenticity as a huge factor in purchasing decisions. The same study also reported that 90% of millennials say authenticity is important in branding, noting that they prefer “real and organic” companies over those that are “perfect and well-packaged.” Building Authenticity Consistency. Across the entirety of the brand experience, ensure that messages and customer interactions are in sync with the identity, values and tone of your brand. Being Real In Advertising. Customers see through photoshopped ads and picture-perfect models. They want real life (think Dove and ThirdLove, who have made it a point to shatter beauty stereotypes by featuring real women in their ads). They also want to know how you choose to do business. Where you source materials. Glimpses into your manufacturing processes (think Allbirds, Everlane and Patagonia). Engage in Conversations. Which means developing a two-way dialogue. This can take place through social media platforms, sharing news, seeking feedback, asking and answering questions, listening and valuing opinions. 3. Diversity & Inclusion Diversity, body positivity, and inclusivity are reshaping customer expectations. This is underscored by a survey by Accenture (even back in 2018) showing that 70% of millennials will choose inclusive and diverse brands over those that are not. Edelman’s Trust Barometer study more recently showed that 60% of consumers claim they will now buy or boycott brands based on how they respond to calls for diversity and racial equality. As stated by Richard Edelman, founder of Edelman: The results are unequivocal: Americans want brands to step up and play a central role in addressing systemic racism. This is a mandate for brands to act, because consumers will exercise brand democracy with their wallets. In the past, CEOs have spoken out on societal issues on behalf of corporate America; today, the CMO and CCO must join them as stewards of brand action. Crucial is that if brands speak publicly about their diversity credentials, they need to make sure they embody them from the inside out. And continue to communicate transparently about how they are doing so. Sarah Greenidge, founder of The Wellness Industry Charter for Racial Diversity, Inclusion and Access suggests that brands cover off on these five pillars to create greater transparency and meaningful change: 4. Health Tracking As noted by Welltodo, “over the past 12 months, tracking, testing and tracing have become an integral part of our daily lives. In […]

Building A Brand Begins On Day One In a marketplace filled with new health and wellness product and service offerings, fueled in part by the challenges and upheaval of the pandemic, a critical question that brand marketing teams need to ask today is – how do we make our product or service brand launch meaningfully stand out from the crowd? The answer is branding and it starts on day one. Launching a new brand is even tougher in today’s environment, as an army of conscious consumers are now holding businesses accountable for their behavior. They’re forcing businesses to push the boundaries when it comes to how they’re approaching sustainability, ethics and social impact, with alignment of values poised to become a powerful tool in cultivating loyalty and generating sales. Branding In Today’s Competitive Marketplace Brands are the lifeblood of startups and the engine that drives business growth. What the business stands for, its name, the design, the feel, and the emotional connection between customers and company can determine the entire trajectory of a business. What factors should founders and brand marketers consider today to launch a brand that customers love and pursue from day one? Here are six considerations that will help you get it right from the beginning, and to continue to breathe life into your brand as it grows.  Target Customer Mindsets Rather Than Demographics Within the health and wellness market, the pace of new product and service launches over the past few years has accelerated, catapulted more recently by the pandemic and the emergence of new lifestyles and behaviors. At the same time, there’s been a tremendous power shift between consumers and businesses, and consumers have more choice than ever before. To have any chance of being relevant, building a brand needs to start with your customer. More specifically, identifying the specific problem you’re setting out to solve – and the people your business is most for. Your target audience definition is less about identifying a particular demographic (though characteristics like age, gender and race are good starting points). More importantly, it’s about identifying the mindset (the attitudes, beliefs and behaviors) of the people who are likely to care most about your brand. This includes answers to questions like: what are their interests? what fuels them each day? what are their pain points? what unique problems can our business solve for them? Identifying and building an intimate portrait of your target customer is crucial, as this helps you determine what you need to do to achieve your goals and how to build your customer engagement strategies. Identify Your Unifying Brand Idea Following the above exercise, it should be apparent that features and functional benefits are not enough to build brand love. First, they’re likely not enough to distinguish you from competition. And even if they are in the short-term, they’re certainly not sustainable. Second, prospective customers are looking for more. What customers are seeking is the promise of your brand – the solution to a specific problem that makes their lives better – embedded throughout the business. At Trajectory, we refer to this promise as your unifying brand idea. It’s a  singular statement that becomes the foundation that drives all of your decision-making, actions and communication. It’s also the glue that connects your customers to your business. Brand Differentiation + Brand Distinctiveness Both are complementary and help make you become more visible to your target audience in a highly competitive health and wellness marketplace. Brand Differentiation After you’ve done the hard work of figuring out what your brand stands for and why it matters in the first place – brand differentiation is about setting yourself apart from the competition by highlighting key aspects, features, and benefits of your brand and how it adds value to customers. When done successfully, brand differentiation successfully convinces consumers that your offer is significantly different on a range of meaningful associations or attributes. The proof of “meaningful” in action means making customers sit up and pay attention. Enticing people out of their usual consumption patterns. Making people want to go the extra mile to buy their brand. Brand Distinctiveness Brand distinctiveness is about standing out through the use of brand assets such as brand name, logos, colors, shapes, characters, messaging, audio and music, scents, etc., so that prospective buyers can easily identify, recall, and buy the brand. Beyond differentiation, your brand’s distinct qualities trigger brand associations that simplify the path to purchase. Examples of these include Tiffany’s blue box, Mastercard’s red and yellow overlapping circles, Intel’s five-note mnemonic or characters like Pillsbury’s Dough Boy. Many brand marketers continue to confuse these two terms, but they’re really simple to distinguish between. When a brand is differentiated it successfully convinces consumers that its offer is significantly different to those of the competition on a range of intended associations or attributes. When a brand is distinctive it looks like itself and “jumps out” at the consumer when they encounter it or consider a purchase. Virgin is red and irreverent.  Southwest is yellow and friendly. There’s a growing volume of data to show that distinctive brand assets have a positive impact on marketing effectiveness. A recent study by Kantar Millward Brown, for instance, found brands with the strongest assets are on average 52% more ‘salient’ than their rivals – in other words, they are much more likely to spring to mind when consumers are shopping within the category. Distinctiveness Across the Brand Experience The experience of your brand world – from logo, to typeface, color, shape, imagery, sound, scent, messaging, etc. – should be distinguished from all others. It’s the thread that runs through the entire brand experience to create impact and build brand connection and customer engagement. Professor Jenni Romaniuk at Ehrenberg-Bass Institute provides this distinctive assets framework for brand marketers to consider when evaluating their opportunity for “Uniqueness” and “Fame.” Benchmarking Competitors & Role Models In ensuring your new brand stands apart and entices people to take notice, it’s important to uncover (as a […]

When we founded Trajectory in 1999, we committed to helping clients across the health and wellness continuum unlock the potential of their brands to leave their mark on business and consumers. Over the course of this journey, we’ve had many conversations with prospective partners about collective aspirations and goals. But it took us until now to identify a visionary company that is aligned with us professionally and personally, and with whom we know we can create even greater value for our clients. We’re proud to announce that Trajectory’s new parent company is GoMo Health, a digital health leader in the design, implementation, and marketing of personalized, evidence-based engagement solutions for patients, members, and employees. Focused on healthcare and wellness, GoMo’s evidence-based BehavioralRx® lifestyle modification science addresses the “whole person” – psychosocial and physical. GoMo’s personalized engagement solutions are deployed by companies across the healthcare and life science continuum – providers, plans, employers, pharma, medical device, consumer health and wellness. Their suite of solutions are highly scalable and cost-effective, enabling better self-management, healthy decision making, and improved outcomes. The coming together of Trajectory and GoMo presents a potent and multi-disciplined “engagement and activation” solution that helps clients across the health and wellness continuum build deeper and more sustainable relationships and outcomes with their end-users. The press release announcing our merger can be read here.

For 20+ years, Trajectory has worked side-by-side with our healthcare and wellness clients’ leadership teams and Boards on their organization rebranding initiatives. From health systems and specialty providers to clinical trials and skincare and beauty – our experience continues to teach us valuable tips about how to navigate, steer and help our clients thrive through these major brand building initiatives. Rebranding Amidst Covid-19 Backdrop The challenges brought about due to Covid-19 might give you pause when contemplating a rebranding. On the other hand, the coronavirus pandemic – and its downstream impacts – can also underscore the urgency to reposition and rebrand. Consider… the mass migration to digital channels for customer purchases and participation, and the need to “pandemic proof” offerings the surging mergers and acquisitions market given the global economic recovery the ongoing wave of new companies who continue to transform the health and wellness space the growing importance to customers of demonstrating brand purpose, which is massively on the rise and more highly valued by younger generations health and wellness itself (driven by the desire for resiliency and immunity) taking on new relevancy and further influencing consumer behavior and impacting purchasing decisions Given the above, there’s a strong case to be made for prioritizing brand building initiatives, as the landscape becomes more complicated and cluttered, and brand is the key business asset that helps organizations lead the way in navigating these developments. Rebranding Checklist The tips and advice contained below will help you assess, plan and execute a successful strategic rebranding on time and on budget. Our action plan (referred to as the acronym DELIVER) is broken out into the following seven steps. 1. Determine Goals (But First Align Around Brand) Now is the time to align everyone around the power and potential of your brand, and to reach consensus with key influencers and decision­ makers about the long-term goals and impact of the rebranding – both brand and business, external and Internal. These serve as the foundation of your effort and will help you to maintain focus during the process. Align Around Brand Meaning & Purpose At a macro level, brand is the narrative that you have around your company and the singular idea of why your company exists. Functioning like an operating system, your organization brand should serve as the platform to orchestrate the intangible relationship between your company and its ecosystem, across stakeholder groups, based on a connected set of ideas and actions. Determine Goals With everyone aligned around brand meaning and purpose, now is the time to agree to the specific goals to be achieved as a result of the rebranding. There are a number of questions that should be answered and agreed upon at the outset by leadership, Board and other key stakeholders, as you’ll continue to reference them throughout your rebranding journey. Some of these questions include: What is the intended business impact of this brand building change? Note: if there’s no business impact, and this is being considered for some surface level creative reasons,  a rebrand is not the correct path forward. What has changed inside the organization and/or in the marketplace that warrants the rebranding? Are there factors that are limiting the performance or growth of your brand? What are the short and long-term benefits of this brand building initiative (operational and marketplace)? How much is it likely to cost the organization (in terms of resources, time and budget)? Conversely, how much is the rebranding likely to save the organization down the road (operationally and marketing-wise)? We know from experience that a successful rebrand starts at the top. Rebranding projects that fail often do so because they don’t receive the support of people who sit at the helm of the organization, or because important stakeholders, such as the CEO and other Board members, do not fully embrace the brand change. Case in point – many years ago for a Southwest Florida health system client, our initial engagement was focused solely on working with members of the leadership team to build a business case for a potential rebranding. Following a compelling presentation to the Board, we were given the green light. 2. Early Planning As every facet of the organization is impacted by a rebranding initiative, an overarching timing, events and budget playbook should be developed early on. This will help keep everyone in the organization on the same page and assist you later when you roll out the brand. Word of advice – document everything! To make accurate estimations, you’ll need people with a macro and micro view on the scope and size of your possible rebrand. You’ll also need a dedicated project team, consisting of people within and across your organization with support from external agencies. This kind of cross-functional team will allow you to identify and assess all your brand touch points (both strategic and design) and determine the viability of all of your existing branded assets. 3. Learn From The Market Everybody has “feelings” about the weight of your organization’s brand assets and how to manage the rebranding, not to mention the results. They’re also more than happy to share them. So how can you make navigating strong opinions easier? How do you get everyone on the same page early on? And if you’re the marketing leader driving the initiative, how do you ensure landing a rebrand that customers love? Evolving your brand’s story and perception means you need to investigate where you’ve been as a brand and where you’re trying to go, and that takes objective honesty.  Specifically, you need to understand: Internal assumptions Existing customer perceptions Future market requirements Goal is to learn, not confirm. Externally, it takes a close examination of your customer, positioning, market direction, traditional and upcoming competitor offerings and image. Internally, consider staff and executive perceptions of company and brand and existing brand assets. This is how you objectify the process. 4. Identity Strategy Think of strategy as your playbook to guide company messaging and actions. Strategy elements include naming, brand […]

As reported in BEAUTY | PACKAGING, skin care and beauty brand Lush Cosmetics has announced it is deactivating its social media accounts. It’s not a “blackout” day—it’s a full-on disconnect, and it may be for good, it seems. The brand says it created its new social media policy, with “consumers’ mental health in mind.” Lush Cosmetics says it will deactivate its Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat accounts, so Twitter and YouTube both seem to be safe, for now. The new social media policy goes into effect on November 26th, Black Friday. It will go into effect in 48 countries. Jack Constantine, chief digital officer and product inventor at Lush, says, “As an inventor of bath bombs, I pour all my efforts into creating products that help people switch off, relax and pay attention to their wellbeing. Social media platforms have become the antithesis of this aim, with algorithms designed to keep people scrolling and stop them from switching off and relaxing.” Putting People Ahead of Profit Lush Cosmetics states that the move is an effort to address consumers’ mental health challenges, and the beauty brand’s global presence across these platforms “will remain deactivated until these platforms take action to provide a safer environment for users.” Mark Constantine, OBE, Co-Founder, CEO and Product Inventor at Lush, adds, “I’ve spent all my life avoiding putting harmful ingredients in my products. There is now overwhelming evidence we are being put at risk when using social media. I’m not willing to expose my customers to this harm, so it’s time to take it out of the mix.” Lush is riding the wave of companies putting people ahead of profit. Today’s value-led consumers and communities expect brands to have an impact beyond their immediate category benefits. Profit has been replaced by purpose, and consumers are looking to brands to stand up and deliver larger benefits for people and planet. As cited in this other Trajectory post, 68% of US consumers (according to Forrester) say that a company’s social responsibility reputation has at least some influence on their purchasing with that company; while 41% of US consumers want to buy from a company with social, political and environmental ideals. Stepping Up To Address Mental Health As reported by Welltodo, a resource for global wellness industry news, insights and trends – mental health has planted itself as one of the major pillars of consumer’s relationship with their overall wellbeing. And increasingly, it is being considered more broadly as falling into a growing sub- category of mental wellness. Quoting Welltodo – byproducts of a modern society underpinned by tension and conflict, living through an era of hyper-connectivity and economic instability and dealing with a growing feeling of disconnection, it’s no shock that millennials and Gen Z are regularly defined as ‘generation angst’, ‘having reached peak burnout’ and ‘among the unhappiest generations ever’. Public data appears to support this view. According to The 2020 Deloitte Global Millennial Survey, conducted both before and after the start of the pandemic, COVID-19 has served to exacerbate stress related to the welfare of peoples’ families, day-to-day finances, career prospects and longer-term financial futures. Today, 44% of millennials say they are stressed all or most of the time, while 72% of Gen Z say managing stress and mental health has become their most important health and wellness concern. And according to research from MTV, it seems our mental wellness has decreased by around 37% since the coronavirus began to take hold back in March 2020. As such, experts warn that a growing mental health crisis could become ‘the second pandemic’ we’re set to face as COVID-19’s aftershocks continue to cause destruction. Where Does Lush Go From Here This pivotal event by Lush somewhat reminds me of when CVS decided to no longer carry tobacco products in any of their 7,600 stores back in October 2014 (though the impact on CVS was far greater). Removing these products from store shelves cost the organization about $2 billion a year or about 3% of overall sales. On the one hand, I’d expect this effort by Lush to help cultivate and build loyalty. But Lush does need to reconsider how it will reach and engage prospective and current customers in the absence of key social media channels – though Twitter and YouTube will still remain active. How will it create experiences that are more meaningful within the context of peoples’ daily lives? How can it authentically evolve services and its overall brand experience to truly speak to specific social and cultural needs? And how can the beauty brand help specific demographics rebound from the current mental wellness crises? But one step at a time. Kudos to beauty brand Lush for delivering on its purpose and taking a stand for customers and society. Any thoughts to share? We’d love to hear.    

For 20+ years, our hybrid brand consultancy / creative agency has worked with clients across the health and wellness industry to help shape and change the trajectory of their brands and businesses. One of the fundamental ideas behind our brand building work, whether shaping a brand or creating new brand energy, is that everything communicates. Everything Communicates Inside and outside of organizations, across the entire business and across all brand identity elements – from purpose, story, positioning, messaging and portfolio, through to culture, design and experience, actions, communications, experiential and advertising – everything communicates. And everything either contributes to growing brand perception, brand value and business growth, or detracts from same. Successful brand building requires orchestrating all of these individual touch points, so they build a powerful and consistent impression among a brand’s audiences. This begins with organization leadership aligning around the “4C’s” principles for building a brand: clarity of brand direction conviction of management belief in the brand consistency in execution across the organization commitment from top down to reinforce brand direction Important to understand is that building a powerful brand doesn’t just happen. It takes an ongoing, coordinated, company-wide commitment to creating, nurturing, defending and strengthening an enduring bond between a customer and a brand. The kind of bond that facilitates and expedites decision-making and creates “category of one” shopping. A 360 Degree View of Brand We define a brand as the set of ideas, promises and experiences that extend across the entire organization, delivered from the inside out; which then live on in people’s minds in terms of how they interpret your actions and perceive your organization. In our definition of brand, everything communicates and every part of the business can be used to fuel loyalty and love. Every decision and every action is an opportunity to make a brand distinguishing and amazing. The sum of these actions creates a network of connected ideas — like an operating system – that guides business decisions, products and experience, brand design, customer experience and marketing. Aligning With Today’s Consumer Today, people have visibility into everything an organization does. Nothing remains behind the curtain. So everything does literally communicate. Which means brands need to behave with integrity and purpose, inside and out. No longer can a company be one thing and a brand be another. Beyond demanding transparency, today’s value-led consumers and communities also want brands to make an impact beyond their products and services. Profit has been replaced by purpose, and consumers are looking to brands to deliver a combination of people and planet benefits. It’s not how much you make but how you make it. Case in point: 68% of US consumers say that a company’s social responsibility reputation has at least some influence on their purchasing with that company 41% of US consumers want to buy from a company with social, political and environmental ideals 70% of the most empowered and influential consumers believe a company’s social responsibility is important And, authentic brand values are good for business: 37% of values-driven firms report double-digit, year-on-year revenue growth vs 32% of companies overall. Source: https://go.forrester.com/blogs/the-power-of-the-values-based-consumer-and-of-authentic-brand-values Trajectory’s Brand Building Framework At Trajectory, we use a brand building framework built around what we call a Unifying Brand Idea. It’s a compelling statement of overarching brand intent or mission that drives the brand, captures its spirit and ties together the experience across the business and the organization’s internal and external marketing activities. The Financial Rewards of A 360° Experience Three research studies support that brands that take a 360° approach – win in the marketplace. Interbrand Best Global Brands Interbrand, the largest consultancy around the globe related to brands (and in full transparency where I used to be on the management board), released its annual ranking of Best Global Brands in October. During the analysis of BGB 2021, the fastest risers significantly outperformed other brands on three factors, revealing their fundamental priorities: Direction: These brands set a clear direction, ensuring that the entire organization knows where they are going, and are working towards the same ambition. Agility: These brands move fast, bringing new products and services to market and, where necessary, pivoting to address changing customer needs. Participation: These brands ultimately bring people on a journey with them and make them part of the movement to create an engaging brand world. Interbrand’s Global Chief Strategy Officer, Manfredi Ricca – inspired by the data from this year’s study, writes of brands as “Acts of Leadership.” He notes that the most inspiring brands are extending their leadership role beyond their direct product category to confront the biggest challenges we face. Tesla, the biggest riser in the Best Global Brands report this year, is driving us towards a low- carbon future and is a leader in its category. The work of PayPal and Salesforce in addressing issues such as economic equality and reproductive rights are further examples of how the best brands are providing systemic solutions to systemic problems. The top 100 brands are represented in this visual below: Wunderman Thompson Top 100 Most Inspiring Brands Wunderman Thompson released its second annual ‘The Inspire Score: Top 100 2021,’ a ranking of the Top 100 Most Inspiring Brands in the World. The ‘Inspire Score’ measures a brand’s “inspiration status and uncovers the brand attributes that fuel business growth through their ability to inspire people.” According to Mel Edwards, Global CEO at Wunderman Thompson, “Our research proves a strong correlation between inspiration and brand growth, which is why our annual list of the Top 100 Most Inspiring Brands is a powerful tool for large and small brands alike.” ‘Inspiration’ Factors According to the report, the research shows that Inspiration is a process. One where the brand puts forward a new, positive possibility for people that they feel compelled to take advantage of. Based on research into inspiration in the field of motivational psychology, Wunderman determined that inspirational brands score highly on three factors: Elevating We feel good when we think and act in an altruistic way. Elevating brands […]