Mercy Health Transforming to a Value-based Healthcare Brand

The Situation

Ohio’s largest health system announced a rebrand from Catholic Health Partners to Mercy Health. Management wanted to simplify a decentralized organization, unify under one name, and firmly position the hospital system as a provider of value-based healthcare.

The Challenge

Cincinnati-based Mercy Health operates 24 hospitals and hundreds of primary care, urgent care and specialty clinics in Ohio and Kentucky. The sheer size, breadth and complexity of the scoped rebrand was daunting on its own. Add in a highly dynamic organization and decentralized marketing budgets, and Mercy Health faced steep financial and logistical challenges to rebrand implementation.

The Solution

Mercy Health engaged BrandActive to scope the rebrand implementation and ensure a strategic approach to the upcoming transformation. BrandActive built the initial cost estimates and rebrand scenarios used to secure funding for the brand change. To accommodate a mid-course budget reduction, we moved the transition of some touchpoints to regional operational dollars and funded others by finding new ways to reduce expenses.

Converting Mercy Health’s more costly branded assets, such as signage, required rigorous attention to nomenclature. BrandActive’s consultants coached and collaborated with staff at local facilities on these crucial details, down to the name on every sign and how these aligned with new DBAs and service naming conventions.

We expanded brand guidelines to encompass the local needs of each market. As Mercy Health continued to make acquisitions and form partnerships throughout the project, BrandActive was on hand to help resolve any brand architecture issues.

BrandActive directly supported the execution of key branded assets, including interior and exterior signage at major public locations, the ID badge system, and ‘Mission, Values, Promise’ plaques.

BrandActive was our very own North Star throughout our rebranding implementation. Their consultants brought financial planning expertise along with deep knowledge of exactly how to map out and execute our brand change across key touchpoints. Without BrandActive, it would have been very difficult to achieve a cohesive rebranding in the face of continual change. What’s even more amazing is how this long-term project came in significantly under the initial budget projection.

— Director of Marketing, Brand Strategy and New Business, Bon Secours Mercy Health

The Results

BrandActive fully realized a brand change that supported the mission and vision of Mercy Health’s system. Armed with bulletproof brand guidelines to accommodate the ongoing change and expansion of the healthcare system, 172 locations were successfully rebranded, 730 points of care renamed, over 2,000 signs transitioned, and 30,000 associates each furnished with one of nine approved Mercy Health ID badge types. This conversion was performed well under budget, saving Mercy Health 18% of the original estimate.