How an established Fortune 100® corporation branded an innovative new company in a relatively unfamiliar market.
Issue
“How do we leverage the strong, established presence of a major acquisition while adhering to the spirit and intent of our own, unified master brand strategy?”
Objective
Create a new brand that represents a new standard for an efficient approach to companies’ health and productivity needs. Project credibility and commitment in what is, for Nationwide, essentially a significant new line of business. Tell a compelling story to help capture market share.
Benefit
Nationwide, a Fortune 100® company, saw a significant market opportunity in creating a true integration of health and productivity services – something that had previously remained an unattainable industry ideal. Combining existing business units with the key acquisition of FutureHealth, an established leader in disease management, Nationwide succeeded in bringing all of the necessary skill sets under one roof. At that point, the company turned to Baker, its strategic communications resource for several years, to devise a name and brand communications framework that would help to sell the new business into a market in which the Nationwide name was relatively new and unproven.
Results
Equipped with a new name and supported by robust brand communication tools, Nationwide Better Health has initiated a new sales program, doubled its sales force, and begun to land new accounts. Post-merger, Nationwide Better Health has also enjoyed employee retention rates of more than 90 percent.
The untold story
While the Nationwide parent brand has established significant equity as a provider of business-to-consumer insurance services, it was a relatively unfamiliar name in the emerging fields of disease, absence and disability management. With the company’s ownership of Gates McDonald – a company with 60 years of equity in disability management – and acquisition of Future Health, a disease and absence management company, Nationwide was poised to offer a new class of integrated absence, disease and disability management services in the healthcare industry.
Baker drew upon a deep understanding of brand mechanics, together with a broad perspective of Nationwide’s short- and long-term business goals, to craft Nationwide Better Health, a compelling sub-brand that would effectively integrate three distinct employee groups into one company. Baker’s solution would ultimately serve as Nationwide’s benchmark for incorporating acquisitions within its master brand framework.
Brand Communications Elements
Brand strategy and development
Name development
Web site content
Sales brochure
Brand image library
Video sales presentation
“Nationwide Better Health offers what has long been missing in the marketplace: true integration of health, medical and productivity solutions.”
Brand strategy and development
In order to best understand the landscape into which the new Nationwide company was launching, Baker first conducted an internal intake session and internal interviews, followed by a competitive evaluation. Baker than leveraged the information gathered to create a distinct brand platform that would ultimately lay the groundwork for name exploration. In developing the name for Nationwide’s new division, Baker was faced with a challenge – how to best communicate the strengths inherent in the Gates McDonald and Future Health heritages within the context of the Nationwide corporate umbrella. Baker explored a range of company name candidates before arriving at Nationwide Better Health, the candidate that best fit the criteria and the master brand.
“The Nationwide Better Health brand offers employers a new way to look at health and productivity. It provides companies with the resources they need to take a holistic approach to benefit plan decisions that effectively address the ‘total populations’ of their workforces.”
Marketing communications campaign
The next major challenge was to create a marketing communications campaign for Nationwide Better Health that would create awareness of the company’s innovative, integrated approach, core equities and unique sales propositions. Within an aggressive timeframe, Baker developed a comprehensive web, collateral and video sales campaign that supported the company’s positioning, true integration and brand attributes, and targeted potential employers at large Fortune 1000® corporations. The look and feel of the new sub-brand, Nationwide Better Health, integrated key elements from the Nationwide parent brand with exclusive treatments that would establish a distinct look, feel and message for Nationwide Better Health.
Sales brochure, web site and video sales presentation
Baker developed a suite of tools for Nationwide Better Health that included a sales brochure, web site copy and a video sales presentation, edited for use online or in long format for events, meetings and conferences.
This program featured a visual kit of parts that formed the foundation for Nationwide Better Health’s identity. Visual elements included a warm, vibrant color palette that suggested an active, healthy lifestyle, overlapping transparent blocks of color and the strategic use of white space. To support this and future marketing communications efforts, Baker created a comprehensive brand image library featuring full-bleed, four-color photography that captured healthy, productive employees, contrasted with organic, still-life images of objects.
“Nationwide Better Health has introduced the only solution in the industry to offer true integration for employers and employees. By combining better resources – years of experience and industry leading capabilities… we’ve delivered better results for millions of employees across the country.”
