Healthcare Branding

How Font Choices Impact Your Marketing Message

We’ve all received emails with a jumble of font styles, sizes and colors that triggers a visceral reaction worse than fingernails on the chalkboard. What were they thinking? More than likely their message was also lost. Font choices—whether deliberate or unintentional—can definitely impact the message.

One hospital administrator’s chosen email font was Comic Sans, often in ALL CAPS and sometimes with comical splashes of color. When asked by the hospital CEO about the font choice, the administrator replied that it made him feel happy. Shortly afterwards, the brand standards guide was revised with strict dictates for font style, size and no color other than black for all hospital communications.

While Comic Sans may have made the sender happy, a message that looked light-hearted about important matters may not have been well received.

A recent study from Monotype, the world’s biggest type foundry, and applied neuroscience company Neurons suggests that different fonts elicit different emotions. The survey of 400 people, from ages 18 to 50, reveals that fonts can influence the way we feet about certain messages.

We process the meaning of words and emotions in the temporal lobe of the brain. The presentation of words can also trigger emotional responses. While healthcare trends toward more serious messages, we generally want to maintain an optimistic rather than alarmist tone of voice. Words and fonts can simultaneously deliver tone of voice.

According to the study, softer and more recognizable fonts tend to produce more positive emotional responses. Pointy, sharp font types often trigger negative emotions.

Fonts are subjective and can mean different things to different people. A study from Brown University indicates that fonts can be ageist. As we age, our eyesight tends to weaken, making it more difficult to read or as quickly as we once did. But, before we blame it totally on age, it might be due to font choices.

Often clients request that we change the font style and size on documents. At an older age some people are no longer able to easily read light, condensed fonts.

The Brown study tested 16 of the most popular fonts used online, in newsprint and in PDFs among participants ages 18 to 71. None of the fonts proved the frontrunner. However, the survey showed that participants over 35 read more slowly on average than younger participants with every font except EB Garamond and Montserrat.

The reason may be the X factor. Of all the typefaces studied, Montserrat—a sans serif font—has the tallest x-height, which refers to the height of a lowercase x. Larger x-heights can improve readability.

EB Garamond  can trigger nostalgic reactions from older readers. It is more of a classic serif design but with updated features including a taller x-height.

Digital platforms typically default to sans serif typography with subtly rounded corners and stems that emote warmer, softer emotions. However, print typeface leans into serif fonts. Even recently published books may use Bodoni, Caslon or other classic typefaces designed in the 18th or 19th century. Pat Conroy’s “My Reading Life” is set in Kennerley, designed by Frederic William Goudy. The famed designer described the font as a “book letter with strong serifs and firm hairlines.”

Times New Roman, introduced by The Times of Londonnewspaper in 1931, remains one of the most widely used fonts of all time. Designed specifically for newsprint, it has a high x-height, short descenders below the baseline that allows tight linespacing and a relatively condensed appearance.

The Times kept the same font for 40 years, only replacing it with variants of the original typeface. Likewise, it was the easily recognized standard font of The New York Times until being replaced in 2007 by Georgia, still a serif design but wider and easier to read.

The American Psychological Association includes 12-pt. Times New Roman as one of only six options for papers written in its APA style.

When logos and brand standards are being redesigned or updated, make sure the designer supports font choices with target audiences in mind. Maximizing the impact of marketing messages depends on maximizing the readability of the message.

How Hospitals Can Build Brand Loyalty
Earning the trust of your patients will help your hospital build brand loyalty.

After more than two years of focusing on COVID-19, health remains top of mind with consumers. Numerous surveys find that US adults are more concerned about health and hygiene than prior to 2020. Of the top five consumer brands they trust most, according to Morning Consult, four are healthcare related—BAND-AID, Lysol, Clorox and CVS Pharmacy.

64% of U.S Adults trust healthcare companies.

Likewise, similar polls show that 64 percent of all adults in this country trust healthcare companies, second only to the trust they place in food and beverage companies. At the bottom of that same poll sit CEOs, with social media and media companies hovering just slightly above them.

This backs findings from the 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer, which reveals that globally, consumers basically trust no one—particularly government leaders, journalists and CEOs.  The same report, however, shows scientists to be the most trusted societal leaders and healthcare to be among the most trusted industry sectors.

Consumer health concerns present a platform for hospitals and healthcare systems to amplify information that lets audiences know “this is what we’re doing” to prioritize their health and care for them. That starts with strengthening bonds between providers and patients, where trust matters most.

Having Coffee With A Friend

How many times have healthcare marketers been told that, despite best efforts, patients go where doctors lead them? With consumers in the driver’s seat that belief is now less prevalent, particularly with Gen Z and Millennial audiences who harbor a high distrust of traditional methods and approaches.

The traditional model of ambulatory care has gone the way of the horse and buggy doctor making house calls. Or has it?

The digital healthcare transformation offers healthcare brands more ways to gain the trust of their patients and build brand loyalty.

Digital healthcare transformation—telemedicine, wearable diagnostic devices, texting, emailing, or messaging through EHR portals—now makes patient care more direct and personal. Remote doctor visits are becoming more like having coffee with a friend, as opposed to in-person interactions with a doctor.

Patients who trust your healthcare brand are more likely to have brand loyalty. 39% of survey respondents will go out of their way to do business with a brand they trust.

Providers can maintain trust with their patients by acknowledging and marketing themselves as unique, individual brands. In the Morning Consult study, 39 percent of respondents indicate when they trust a brand, they will go out of the way to do business with it. Few things cause a woman more angst than having to change hairdressers or gynecologists. Once they establish a bond, it’s hard to break.

Choosing one doctor over another often depends on four key factors:

  1. Patient experience
  2. Convenience
  3. Reviews
  4. Competitive pricing

Trust between doctors and their patients empowers providers to get back to what most want to do in the first place—keep patients healthy.

Humanizing the Brand

One of the most valuable lessons learned from the pandemic is the need to humanize brands to demonstrate knowledge and solidify consumer trust.

Patients trust providers with their health, time, and money. Credibility and trustworthiness solidify their decisions more than over-the-top promises and exaggerated claims.

Start by getting rid of pre-2020 platitudes. Instead:

  • Share authentic patient stories to inform and educate;
  • Feature doctors, nurses, and other staff to share brand stories;
  • Inform with science and research without hesitation or sugar coating;
  • Listen; ask patients about their visits with quick and easy post surveys; monitor reviews and social media comments.

Carefully Consider What You Say, Do and Share

Consumers tend to lose trust in a brand due to negative experiences and sub-par quality. Picking sides on a social issue that contrasts with the consumer’s views is also a trust breaker.

Even though a doctor’s or nurse’s personal social media pages should be safe forums for sharing personal beliefs, it is a public forum. The public doesn’t distinguish between what Joe says, does or shares while on vacation from what Dr. Joe says, does or shares on the practice platforms during office hours.

For example, providers are now caught in a legal and political quagmire following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. With emotions running high on both sides of the issue, not only can providers lose patients with public or private statements, but their brand can negatively be affected.

Currently, earnestly addressing, prioritizing, and managing a patient’s health builds trust.  And that’s important.

How to Improve Brand Reputation

Recognizing When Your Brand Is Losing Its Luster

Illustration of people working together on building a brand reputation. Illustration includes a laptop, graphs, and social media icons.

If your marketing seems less effective or success benchmarks aren’t being met, it may be time to evaluate your brand reputation. Though some shifts in performance can be attributed to the ever-fickle consumer and rapidly changing marketing trends, sometimes the problem can lie deeper beneath the surface and may require long-term solutions. So how do you tell if your healthcare brand is losing its luster? And how do you stay nimble enough to avoid a sliding brand reputation?

Start by examining the relationship between brand and reputation. Your brand is the promise you make to audiences. You earn a reputation by how you fulfill that promise. When the gap between those begins to widen is when the brand begins to slide. You can be a bright, shining star one day with the brand reputation of a dull pariah the next.

Learn from Retail Brands

Paying close attention to the state of your healthcare brand’s reputation could save you from being faced with a timely and expensive rebranding effort on top of falling revenues. One retail brand that failed to keep up with its changing reputation is early 2000s fashion icon, Abercrombie and Fitch. The fashion brand hinged its success on a marketing strategy of elitism, positioning itself as the way teenagers can look cool.  Abercrombie & Fitch quickly fell from grace as changing social attitudes about racial diversity and size inclusivity stood in opposition to the brand’s messaging.

When a class-action racial discrimination lawsuit against the company came to light, it was clear Abercrombie & Fitch needed serious changes in its culture and messaging. In 2017, the brand underwent a full transformation to improve its brand reputation resulting in a resurgence of success with Gen Z consumers. Carey Collins Krug, Abercrombie Brands’ senior vice president and head of marketing told TeenVogue, “Abercrombie today isn’t about ‘fitting in,’ but instead is focused on creating [a] space where everyone genuinely belongs.”

Toxic company culture—mistreatment of employees, discrimination of any kind, misinformation, and inauthenticity—can also quickly tarnish a brand. Healthcare marketers can learn lessons from retail brands like Abercrombie & Fitch. Test your brand regularly to make sure you’re still relevant and well received by your target audience.

Don’t be afraid to ask hard questions.

There are two rules to maintaining a good brand reputation. First, never get comfortable. Second, constantly polish the brand.

Rule #1—never get comfortable or take your eyes off the ball.

Rule #2—constantly polish the brand and monitor your reputation.

How do stakeholders view your brand? Ask them. Perception research is critical to evaluating marketing programs and determining if messages resonate with audiences as authentic, truthful, and what they want.

Whether in-depth consumer and brand studies or short post-visit patient surveys, digital platforms place invaluable data at your fingertips. Questions or comments posted on websites or social channels can also warn of shifting consumer behaviors.

In monitoring your brand, monitor the competition as well. Look for areas where they may be outshining you or losing some of their lusters.

Step outside the marketing bubble to test the brand promise.

Being too close to creating and marketing a brand can skew the perceptions of even the most experienced marketing professional. If you haven’t tested your brand promise since pre-2020, quickly do so.

Does the promise resonate with patients, employees, doctors, and community stakeholders? Does it resonate with your barber, barista, or mother? If the reaction is “what does that mean?” you know it’s time to refresh the brand.

Brand reputation can be viewed as a Venn Diagram. One part is your brand promise. The other part is brand fulfillment. In the center you can build brand trust.

The Edelman Trust Barometer 2020 special report, “Brands Amid Crisis,” chronicled consumer values that quickly shifted from aligning with brands reflecting social status, success and lifestyle to those that put consumer safety first, showed value and cared more about people than profit. Edelman’s 2021 Trust Barometer declared a complete information bankruptcy, with consumers mostly distrusting everyone.

For your brand to stay relevant and resonate with audiences, remember they are watching how you treat employees, what you’re doing for the community’s health, how you’re taking care of them and how you react in times of crisis.

To retain brand trust with audiences, stay ahead of them. Implement such tactics as:

  • Provide the best digital experiences possible from website to mobile apps.
  • Curate content that’s authentic and relevant, not platitudes about the brand.
  • Invest and engage with community needs.
  • Position leadership as leaders in the community, particularly in times of crisis.
  • Identify local micro-influencers whose brand values align with yours; leverage their influence.
  • Listen to them.

In this time of rapidly shifting consumer perceptions and social attitudes, move swiftly and strategically if you recognize that your brand is beginning to lose its luster. 

If you feel your brand may be losing its luster, we can help with strategic planning, rebranding, and more. Email Lori Moore or call TotalCom Marketing Communications at 205.345.7363.

Does Color Matter in Hospital Marketing?

Let us guess. Your organization’s logo is predominantly blue. Are we right? We can make that assumption because more than half of all company logos and a whopping 85% of hospital logos are blue. That’s according to a logo review by design marketplace 99designs.

And it makes sense. Blue is associated with calmness, trustworthiness, and steadfastness. What healthcare organization wouldn’t want to project those brand traits? The rest of your palette is probably a pleasing yet limited color selection that complements your main logo color. And you’ve been drilling those colors and their proper usage into the heads of content creators your organization over for years.

But are you using color strategically?

color plays a big role in the way that we see and perceive brands
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Should You Go All-in on Brand Marketing?

Healthcare systems across the country seem to be jumping back on the branding wagon. They are hiring marketing vice presidents from consumer brand companies and engaging multinational advertising agencies. The idea is to create a pull strategy that causes consumers to demand your healthcare system. That, in turn, gives you leverage when negotiating insurance reimbursement rates.

But will new logos and television ads alone create that demand?

Probably not.

Designer team sketching a logo in digital design studio on computer, creative graphic drawing skills for marketing and branding (own design elements on the computer screen)
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unified hospital marketing and branding

Tips for Creating a Unified Hospital Marketing Brand

Take a look at all of your branded material online — your social media profiles, your website, the blogs you create, the emails you send out, your graphics, your display ads, and anything else that is associated with your brand.

If you were to remove the logos, would all those pieces look similar/related? Would there still be a unified, consistent look among all of those elements — or would you not be able to tell they even came from the same company?

If the latter, you may have a problem with brand consistency for your hospital marketing campaign.

Learn more about why brand consistency is important and how you can build a stronger, more unified brand for your hospital.

Why Brand Consistency Matters

People have an innate ability to recognize patterns. We also have an innate ability to recognize and associate with brands, in that we notice what makes a brand stand out and recognize those elements when we see them later — and also, we build positive or negative connections between a brand and our opinion of it.

For example, seeing a physical example of McDonald’s “Golden Arches” is commonplace. We all know what those arches mean, just as we know what it means when we read McDonald’s tagline, “I’m Lovin’ It” or see one of the company’s advertisements. You could remove the logo entirely from the restaurants and the company’s marketing materials and you’d still be able to tell from the company’s consistent use of various other brand elements that you were standing in a McDonald’s (or reading/viewing a McDonald’s advertisement). And of course, every time you notice one of these elements, you experience emotions and thoughts about the brand (good or bad).

Brand consistency matters because it’s these strong brand connections that ultimately drive business. This is especially important when it comes to hospital marketing. A hospital isn’t a place people go because they want to — they only go there when they need to. And since no one knows exactly when he or she is going to experience that need, it’s important to ensure that your brand is “top of mind” when the time comes. Otherwise, your customer could choose another provider.

The simple truth is, people choose whomever has the strongest, most memorable brand. But you can’t make your brand strong or memorable without also making it consistent, and ensuring that it delivers the same message, no matter where your audience sees it.

Creating Brand Consistency

First and foremost, your hospital should have a brand guide. This is a document that codifies all that the brand is — not just how it looks, but also the brand messages to be communicated. This guide is where you spell out slogans, taglines, core values, messages, talking points, and the like —anything, that is, that can be used to create a message that a potential patient will encounter.

Of course, how a brand looks does also matter, tremendously. That’s why a style guide should be a part of the brand guide. The style guide dictates, to the finest detail, how the brand will look — which is key to ensuring consistency in any graphic you create, whether it’s a Facebook page, a print ad, a display ad, a social media post, an infographic, or a logo for a TV commercial.

Your guide can get very specific in detailing brand directions for each medium. For example, if you run ads on television, your guide can dictate what branding elements will be in each commercial. If you post on social media and create images for the post, you can stipulate what each image must look like and contain.

Everyone on your team needs to have the brand guide and be on board with it. This is crucial for successful hospital marketing. Otherwise, you’ll have different people creating different things — applying brand elements inconsistently across marketing materials. And that lack of consistency dilutes your brand.

Periodically, check your brand and review it to make sure it’s:

  • Coherent
  • Clear
  • Concise
  • Cohesive
  • Convincing

All of these qualities need to be in place, especially the cohesive aspect. Your brand should have the same uniform appearance wherever it appears. Checking it on a regular basis — maybe once a quarter — not only gives you opportunities to revise it if needed, but also keeps everyone on the same page.

Get Better Hospital Marketing with TotalCom

If you’re interested in advancing your hospital marketing campaign with consistent branding across all media, contact TotalCom Marketing. We’d be more than happy to help create winning branding campaigns that improve recognition and build trust within your market.

emotional marketing to patient

Healthcare Marketing: Connect with Emotion

In healthcare marketing we have to walk the line between expertise and emotion. People will be drawn to your facility for your expertise, reputation, outcomes, physicians, and technology, but those alone are not enough to convince them to choose your hospital. Emotional marketing is key.

Ones health is very personal and patients choose healthcare facilities because they trust them and connect with them – on an emotional level.

So promote your technology, new services, and procedures, but do so in a way that connects with your audience.

Branding Builds Familiarity and Loyalty

One way to connect with future patients on an emotional level is through a strong branding strategy. Effective branding relies on consistency. Your logo, colors, tone and message should always remain the same regardless of the platform you are using.

If a consumer is familiar with your TV ads, they should have no trouble recognizing your outdoor or paid ads on Facebook.

Marketing your hospital across multiple media outlets helps build a stronger brand. If your TV and radio ads are combined with a good social media presence and outdoor, people will become more familiar with your facility than if you just focus on one medium alone. It takes several touch points before consumers make a decision – they need to see you and know you before they choose you.

Tell Stories

Consumers connect emotionally when you tell your story. Patient testimonials are great because they involve a real person telling their real patient experience at your facility.

Prospective patients can relate to the condition, the apprehension, and the suffering and yearn for the same positive outcome.

Patient stories can of course be told through traditional media. But, blogging and online videos can also be very effective for relaying a patient’s experience. Having both video and audio and little more time than is available in a television commercial, makes video testimonials especially powerful.

Another way to tell your story is from the perspective of the physician. For instance, if someone is searching online for solutions to their back pain and they find a video of your physician explaining a new procedure done at your hospital, they can begin building that bond of trust before ever meeting the doctor in person! Video makes doctors human, takes away some of the anxiety and makes the prospective patient confident in the expertise of the physician and the facility.

Encourage Social Media Engagement

People are more likely to connect with your hospital emotionally when they see others have that connection. That is why it is so important to encourage your patients to engage on social media. There are several ways to do this.

One idea is the use of a specified hashtag. Brookwood Medical Center in Birmingham, AL has had great success with this strategy. In their #ichooseb campaign they urge patients to use the hashtag and then give the reason they chose that particular hospital.

As a result of this tactic, you see a ton of posts on social media where patients are telling others all the great things about Brookwood Medical Center. Not only is this free advertising, but it also gives people who may not have had any experience with that facility an immediate emotional connection. People think, ”If my friend Lisa chose Brookwood, then maybe I need to go there as well!”

When you do experience social media engagement, make sure to nurture it by responding. You build that emotional connection when you respond to someone’s social media post because it shows to that patient and their friends that you care about what they have to say.

 

If you need help connecting with your target audience on a more personal, emotional level, contact Jimmy Warren today!

ABOUT JIMMY WARREN
Early to bed, early to rise, work like crazy and advertise! Jimmy Warren is president of TotalCom Marketing Communications and has over 30 years experience helping all kinds of businesses build a strong brand. A large portion of that experience has been helping hospitals and healthcare organizations. He loves the ‘weird’, interesting and extremely talented people he gets to work with every day – that includes co-workers and clients. Outside of work he enjoys his grand kids, traveling and any kind of good ole fashion Alabama sports. Roll Tide!

 

Hospital Marketing: 5 Tests to Keep Your Brand Relevant

 A critical view of your brand can make it enduring and stronger.

A hospital’s brand is extremely important.  With the changing healthcare environment brands are in transition with new alliances, new ventures, a host of rating organizations, consumer-driven marketplace and so much more.  Which means it’s more difficult to keep a strong and consistent brand.

It’s crucial for hospitals and healthcare organizations to frequently revisit the brand, reassess and keep the brand as clean and consistent as possible.  Here are 5 tests every brand should ask and consider on a regular basis.

1.    How is your brand perceived in the marketplace?

What is the consumer perception of your brand?  Is it gaining strength or waning?  Does the consumer have a clear idea of what and who the brand is?  Do they know what the brand stands for?  Is the brand relevant to the consumer?

2.    How is the brand communication?

Take an inventory of all brand touchpoints.   Patients, physicians, providers, payers, employees, management and board.  What is the brand communicating to each?  Is it consistent?  Does it reflect the mission and values of the organization?

3.    Analyze your brand architecture.

In many ways this may be the most difficult.  As organizations grow and change, it’s difficult to keep consistent and clearly defined brand architecture.  Do patients understand the different product and service lines and how they relate to each other and to the master brand?  Is there confusion?   A weak brand architecture creates weak brand equity.

4.    Assess the brand expression.

Does the brand have a consistent image, look and feel across all touch points? Can the consumer tell that all parts of the brand are part of the overall brand family?

5.    Examine the brand expression.

How is the brand expressed?  Does it have a consistent tone, personality and message?  Do all the communications speak the same voice and reflect the same character and heart?

In today’s environment it’s so easy to get sidetracked, disjointed and inconsistent.  It’s easy to get going in too many different directions and sacrificing the brand for expediency or politics.  And when this happens, the brand is weakened.   Healthcare marketers should constantly be asking these questions and diligently communicating a consistent, well-planned and strong brand.  Across all platforms, to every audience and with every execution.  I know it’s easier said than done.  But we must always be fighting the good fight to protect and enhance our brand.

Healthcare Marketing: 8 Ways to Humanize Your Hospital’s Brand

Humanize Your Hospitals BrandUse these suggestions to make your hospital more than an organization, make it more human.  Build relationships that are more personal.  Create more loyalty. Impact your brand.

Too often consumers’ relationships with our hospital are strictly transactional.  They use the hospital to get the service they need.  Nothing more.  But we can help them develop positive feelings and emotions about our brand. And build brand loyalty.

In today’s socially charged world, there is a need for hospitals to develop a persona, create relationships that are more than just transactional.  To be helpful, meaningful, engaging.  To develop a brand for our hospital that people like.  A brand they trust.  A brand they are loyal to.

Corey Eridon posted a blog for HubSpot that offered suggestions on how an organization could do this.  I borrow some of his ideas here that could help humanize your hospital’s brand.

1.    Write an “About Us’ page that’s actually good.

Here is your chance to tell people who you are.  Give your brand a personality.  But more often than not, its boring, stale, factual information about your hospital.  Why not use it to show your personality, to be interesting and give a reason why the reader should care about who you are?

2.    Kill the business babble.

Hospital or clinical jargon doesn’t cut it. Be clear and easy to understand.  Talk as if you are having a one-on-one conversation with someone in person who knows nothing about your industry.  Talk like a person.  And this goes for ‘About Us’ pages especially.

3.    Publish photos of your people.

People doing what they do.  At work, volunteering, in serious activities and even in more light-hearted ones.  Let your people’s personality show.  Put a face on the place.  Make it about people who work at your hospital and not about an organization.

4.    Sign your social media updates.

If you have various persons posting on your social media sites, let them sign it.  This helps people know there is a real, live, breathing person behind the brand.

5.    Have conversations with fans, followers and commenters.

Make sure all the conversations aren’t just about your hospital.  Venture outside the norm a bit so you can be real.   Make it abut them.

6.    Encourage employees to be social on behalf of the brand.

Eridon says when employees post social media updates about or on behalf of their company, it does a few things:

  • It lets people know that person gives a hoot about the company they work for
  • It lets people get to know the names, faces and personalities behind the company
  • It gives the company’s content way, way more reach

Sure there has to be a strong social media policy with guidelines and restrictions.  Especially with regard to HIPAA regulations.  But letting your people help humanize the hospital through their social media channels can be very helpful personalizing your brand.

7.     Admit your mistakes.

On those occasions when customer service is not what you want to be admit your shortcomings.  Everyone screws up.  It’s human. It’s how you respond to mistakes that matters the most.  Be genuine, care and own up to it.

8.    Take off your marketer’s hat sometimes.

Sometimes it’s good to see things a little differently.  Like through the eyes of the consumer.  Step back, stop being a marketer for a bit and just be a consumer.  You may see things a little differently.  That’s what marketing is really about anyway.

Make your brand more human.  Build rapport with your audiences.  Be a friend and just “hang out” with them sometimes.  Be authentic.  Build lasting relationships!

Healthcare Marketing: Your Hospital’s Mission or Brand?

Great mission statements define the brand.  Mission and brand should be the same.

153499892Examine your hospital’s mission statement.  How long is it?  How many words does it have?  Do you fully comprehend it?  Unfortunately too many hospital mission statements (like other organizations) are paragraphs that try to encompass everything the organization thinks has importance.  But is it something that truly defines your brand?  Is mission and brand the same?

Scott Regan, CEO of Achieveit in an article appearing in Becker’s Hospital Review  articulated this issue very well.   He is correct in stating that great mission statements are the brand.  Great mission statements are the basis for every decision, strategy and policy of the hospital.  They are embedded in the hospital’s vision, values, strategy and operations.  Great mission statements precisely define the brand.  Mission and brand…are both the same.

When the mission and brand are tightly woven together it creates a powerful organizational dynamic.  “Creating the kind of mission-brand integration that elevates organizations to market dominance requires short, succinct mission statements – eight words or less – that resonate with both internal and external stakeholders,” stated Regan.

And he provides two great examples.  One is Memorial Health in Savannah Georgia.  That hospital adopted a five-word mission statement: “We help people feel better.”  And the two word branding statement was simply, “feel better.”  Regan cites that twelve years later, Memorial Health has market dominance which includes four consecutive years on Fortune magazine’s list of “100 Best Companies To Work For.”

The other example is Liberty Health in Jersey City, N.J.  That organization adopted a three-word mission statement: “We enhance life”.  And a two word branding statement: “Enhancing life.”

In both of these cases, the mission statement is succinct and clear.  It goes to the essence of who the organization is and the statement easily defines the purpose of the organization.  The mission and the brand are exactly the same.  It leaves very little room for ambiguity about who the organization is and what it does.  It defines what you do every day.

It’s not easy to define your organization in eight words or less.  To do so, requires you to strip away all the stuff you think is organizationally important to concentrate on the core essence of the organization.  To do so means every employee can know and understand the mission and how their job contributes to that mission. It clearly defines, to those inside and out, who you are.  It allows employees to live the mission and live the brand.  And when that happens it translates to your external audiences knowing and experiencing your brand.

Is it brand or mission?  It’s the same!!!