Strengthen Your Program Brand

It’s tempting to think of a wellness program’s brand as exclusively name and logo. These are important, but to fulfill the potential of a meaningful, effective brand, it must go far beyond those elements… even beyond words and images. A strategically executed brand reflects goals and values — permeating the program so that people recognize it — through the thoughts, feelings, and perceptions it triggers at every turn.

Brand Examples

To illustrate how brands can be fully integrated, consider 2 fictionalized well-being programs:

1. A venerable banking institution strives to reduce employees’ cardiovascular risk factors and help manage their medical conditions. Biometric screenings and an HRA are at the program’s core.
2. A start-up that sells organic dog treats on the web seeks to be a preferred employer. Its program has achieved notoriety for drumming circles, yoga classes, and onsite massage.

For these examples, note how the brand is expressed visually, verbally, emotionally:

• The bank’s program name is Wealth of Health; the start-up’s is Qioree (we’ll say it’s from an ancient word meaning connection).
• Wealth of Health’s logo is made up of a W and an H, with abstract adornments that resemble a human figure running; Qioree’s depicts people holding hands, with a puppy print integrated into the program name.
• The bank’s print and electronic communications repeat the employer’s colors, yellow and blue; Qioree’s colors are teal and fuchsia.
• Wealth of Health’s website is designed for fast navigation and is laid out like a newspaper’s front page; Qioree’s uses a lot of images and animation to invite exploration.
• Qioree publishes a monthly flier of activities in the casual Comic Sans font, posted in the office’s bathroom stalls; the bank communicates exclusively on the bank’s intranet and email (bathroom postings are against policy) using the classic Verdana font.
• Wealth of Health offers a webinar featuring one of the nation’s leading migraine specialists; Qioree has a dietitian lead a brown-bag workshop to discuss organic food facts and fiction.
• The bank’s employee cafeteria designates Wealth of Health items, like salad, Greek yogurt, and grilled chicken; Qioree hosts a Friday afternoon smoothie bar.
• Wealth of Health’s promotional emails are formal, with messages that start like this: “Dear Employee, The Wealth of Health program encourages you to attend…”; Qioree’s emails start, “Hey guys!”
• Qioree’s staff have a choice of golf shirts or T-shirts they can wear to work, all featuring the Qioree logo; Wealth of Health’s are expected to wear business attire to reflect the program’s professionalism.

These examples — exaggerated here for purposes of illustration — demonstrate how brand is a thread that runs through the fabric of a well-being program. It’s an essential undercurrent of an effective communication strategy that allows participants to connect with the program’s vision and values on a sensory level.

When participants perceive the Qioree brand, they immediately identify it as innovative, holistic, and fun. When spotting the Wealth of Health brand, employees relate to it as well-grounded, quality driven, and understated.

Program names have no hard and fast rules. In these examples, both have advantages and disadvantages. Self-explanatory names like Health This or Wellness That (or Wealth of Health) have the advantage of conveying what the program is, yet run the risk of being generic (therefore, by definition, lacking a strong brand). An offbeat word, like Qioree, can work, especially if there’s a meaningful narrative behind the word choice.

What Is a Brand?

A brand is not just a thing. It’s a familiar, recognizable feeling you want people to associate with your program. As part of the brand, the name, logo, words, and images reinforce that feeling.

You’ll find times when it makes sense to diverge from the brand, but do so strategically — for example, when a pilot program is intended to stand out from typical activities.

7 Branding Tips

Whether you’re developing a new brand or fine-tuning an existing one, here are some helpful tips:

1. Link your program to your employer’s culture and purpose through a well-being brand associated with the organization’s overall brand or product/service. The bank does this by using Wealth in its name; the start-up does it by slipping a puppy image into its logo. Both are well matched to culture.
2. Work with your employer’s branding experts to get input on guidelines as well as processes for using trademarks and avoiding infringement.
3. Assess in advance the different ways a logo may be used. Think twice, for example, before adopting a 4-color logo if you know it’s going to be imprinted on T-shirts and water bottles.
4. Consider the potential for multiple brands — the vendors’ and yours — if you outsource activities like HRAs, coaching, and biometric screenings to avoid confusion.
5. Learn vendors’ opportunities for “white labeling,” where you rebrand their products to look like yours, with techniques ranging from having your program’s visual themes on their website to having their help desk answer the phone as if they worked for your program (for example, “This is Qioree Coaching, how can I help you?”).
6. Ask if your vendors allow co-branding visual elements, where websites or print materials share their logo and yours. But be cautious about having your brand used in ways you can’t control.
7. Don’t integrate your brand into highly confidential vendor services, like HRAs or EAPs. You want employees to feel confident their personal information is processed exclusively by a third party.

When developing a brand, start by defining what your program is, what values are important, and how you and your organization want employees to feel about it. Working with a team of stakeholders, if possible, weave together the visual, verbal, sensory, and emotional elements.

Of course, creating the brand isn’t enough. Being mindful to apply it consistently is what leads to the ultimate payoffs of improved engagement, satisfied participants, and better results.

Branding HES

by Dean Witherspoon

Our new corporate site just launched, giving us a chance to put into practice the insights Bob Merberg details in this article. Here’s how we went about reinforcing our brand through HESonline.com:

• Culture and purpose. Explore our product pages and you see we’re serious about workplace well-being but have always aimed for a light-hearted approach. Many things about work are unfun; wellness shouldn’t be one of them.
• Goals and values. We’re clear about what a well executed wellness challenge can do for our clients, contributing to a workplace where health is a shared responsibility and the tools are in place to enhance quality of life.
• Directness and transparency. You get specific product details by watching 8-minute demos and viewing actual pricing right on the site. If you want to talk to us you can, but we don’t force it.
• Teach, then sell. In the end, we make our living selling well-being challenges. But if we’re not learning and growing together our relationship is short-lived. That’s why we put more effort into understanding and applying the science of health behavior change than anyone, and freely share those insights with you (and our competitors) in our blog and research.