The challenge

HSC embarked on a journey to become a national leader with facility upgrades, hiring of superior staff and creation of new clinical programs, but two major issues were impeding it from being recognized as a true leader:

• Brand confusion. People were unclear on what the hospital specialized in.
• Brand inconsistency. There were conflicting designs and messages in marketing materials. Each practice area was allowed to produce its own material and no two looked alike.

Mason solution

Through research and planning, the team uncovered that HSC services are clustered around five specialty areas: Pulmonary, Acquired Brain Injury, Complex Pediatrics, Neuromuscular and Spinal Cord Care. We then created an integrated program to build awareness of HSC's leading expertise in the long-term acute care field by framing and defining best practices, sharing superior outcomes, and raising the profile of HSC as a research and training institution in the specialty areas.

The breakthrough

Branding around the five specialty practices has brought a clearer sense of direction, better stakeholder understanding and more appropriate patient referrals. The Mason-created brand guide and separate style guide to protect brand consistency has been "bought into" across departments. The new branding messages, leadership tone and style continue to be implemented consistently across all communications. As a result, specialty areas are at or near patient capacity, and the HSC Foundation successfully launched its first capital campaign in more than a decade building off the same messaging.