A compassionate
plan to champion
the community.
PROVIDENCE HEALTH PLAN
Brand strategy built to stand apart, and to be a part of a mission bigger than health insurance.
BACKGROUND
How does Providence
Health Plan stand apart
in a crowded market?
For over 160 years, Providence Health & Services has been a cornerstone of healthcare in the Pacific Northwest. In 1986, Providence launched a health insurance subsidiary, Providence Health Plan, to extend their mission of providing access to compassionate care. Nearly forty years later, despite having nearly 80% brand recognition and a stellar record of tangible community impact, Providence Health Plan was facing a gradual erosion of market share. A key issue emerged: a lack of clarity around Providence Health Plan’s core values, offering, and community action, leaving price as the deciding factor in purchase decisions.
Fort West was tasked with reestablishing the brand’s connection to the community it serves, and helped build.
Services
+ Brand Strategy
+ Brand Design
+ Brand Activation
+ Marketing Strategy
+ Integrated Campaign
+ Performance Measurement
BRAND STRATEGY
Shifting the value
of health insurance
from “me” to “we.”
As the saying goes, “the bones were good.” Fort West started with a deep understanding of the organization’s history, evolution, and the intrinsic values that have led to its long-term success. Community was at the core. Our brand strategy captured a spirit that had been there since the beginning — a belief in the ability to care for all through the collective strength of many.
TARGET MINDSET
Understanding
who to speak to
and why they care.
Fort West helped capture and define the mindset of Providence Health Plan’s ideal customer — the people who most resonate with the brand’s values, purpose, and story. We named them “The Caring Collective.” This group epitomizes the spirit of building something greater than themselves, recognizing the power of collaboration and community. To The Caring Collective, Providence Health Plan is the community health plan that cares for all through the combined strength of their members.
BRAND CHARACTER
The revival of
The Community
Champion.
A target mindset isn’t enough. A brand character personifies the brand giving us clear a direction for crafting communications, brand experiences, and even new products and services. It provides a muse by which to keep our tone of voice true and on brand. The brand character is created from the combination of two archetypes. For Providence Health Plan, we created The Community Champion.
N. One who sparks a feeling of fellowship with others as a result of advocating for common cause, attitudes, interests, and goals.
BRAND DESIGN
Forward Together:
Embracing the vibrancy
of the community.
“Forward Together” is a design metaphor used to curate the visual universe that the brand character inhabits. It is brought to life through design that represents the interaction between target mindset, the Caring Collective, and the character, the Community Champion.
In a healthcare industry saturated with stock photography, Providence Health Plan was designed to stand apart; representing the diverse and vibrant community they serve.
MESSAGING SYSTEM
Speaking with
the right message,
at the right time.
As an extension of our brand character, The Community Champion, we created a voice that expresses Providence Health Plan’s personality and purpose. We developed central goals and themes that keep messaging on brand and consistent.
INTEGRATED CAMPAIGN
Celebrating the big
(little) moments that
that matter most.
The ten-week open enrollment period is an especially important season for attracting new Medicare Advantage Plan members. On a parallel path to the brand and design work, Fort West leveraged insights to develop an integrated campaign that captured the attention of audiences 64 years and older.
The campaign focused on the real things we have an opportunity to do later in life — the small and understated things that we love. The aesthetic, mood, and individual storylines were designed to work in both traditional and digital channels, and were distinct in their creative style, approach, and targeting.
MEDIA PERFORMANCE
The campaign didn’t
meet our expectations.
Something was wrong.
With a new campaign in market, we awaited positive results — that never came. Providence Health Plan achieved less than 50% of their enrollment goal. We asked questions. A lot of questions. As we dug deeper, we discovered their current media strategy wasn’t working. Their media partner was not giving the business the time and attention they deserved, and needed to be successful. They were underdelivering, and overcharging.
MARKETING STRATEGY
The power of a truly
integrated creative
and media approach.
Fort West assumed responsibility for all media strategy, planning, and buying services. We created a custom mix of target audiences, channel allocations, and deployment tactics that met Providence Health Plan’s audience in their moment. In securing media placements, we negotiated an unparalleled amount of added value, maximizing every dollar.
Our marketing strategy utilizes two key frameworks: a go-to-market plan and a Communications Blueprint. The go-to-market plan defines the budget, the timing, and the channels, and the Communications Blueprint details the journey, the narratives, and the actions.
MEDIA PERFORMANCE (AGAIN)
Same creative.
Different strategy.
Staggering results.
The next open enrollment period, we were ready. Using the exact same messaging and creative as the year prior, but now equipped with a bespoke media strategy that understood the audience and their needs, the year-over-year results were almost unbelievable. From media efficiency, to website traffic, to call volumes, all major campaign metrics experienced dramatic increases.
OUTCOMES OVER OUTPUT
“Our best
enrollment
period ever...”
Careese Sakagawa, Chief Marketing Officer
+43%
CALL VOLUME
+318%
WEBSITE TRAFFIC
+508%
+244%
DIGITAL ENROLLMENTS
NET NEW ENROLLMENTS
A NEW ASK
Evolve the brand to
more closely align
with the master brand.
Stop the presses! Whereas the original brand design for Providence Health Plan was purposefully distinct and separate from the master Providence Health & Services brand, a new vision called for uniting the appearance of both organizations to support geographic expansion.
BRAND EVOLUTION
Don’t fix what
isn’t broken.
The foundations of the Providence Health Plan’s brand were strong — there was no need for substantive change. Rather, a few small but mighty tweaks to the brand’s characteristics and design principles cleared the way for visual alignment.
DESIGN EVOLUTION
We’re building a
family, not clones.
Our challenge was to update the look and feel of Providence Health Plan to family with the master brand, while maintaining its distinct character. We worked within the confines of the master brand design language, while refiing and expanding the palette and graphic characteristics to achieve a modern, dynamic look. Aspects of our existing graphic library, like our unique icon set, were updated in color only, minimizing the need to reinvent systems that worked well.
Providence Health & Services
Providence Health Plan
BRAND ACTIVATION
Providence Health
Plan gets ready to
make a bold statement.
Following the success of open enrollment, Providence Health Plan was ready to maintain their momentum. The America’s Health Insurance Plans conference (AHIP) was to be held in Portland, Oregon — Providence Health Plan’s home turf.
Fort West was tasked with creating an experience for the conference that both celebrated Providence Health Plan’s noble work and signaled their intentions to become a player on the national stage. Despite a near 40-year history as a prime regional player, this was to be their “coming out party”.
EXPERIENTIAL DESIGN
A sincere
commitment
to Health for All.
Our overarching goal was to inspire the health insurance community by showcasing Providence Health Plan’s holistic approach to healthcare. We used the booth space to educate attendees through participation in self-care classes, trainings, blood pressure screenings, and more, hosted by our community partners.
Attendees were invited to write what “Health For All” meant to them on the Health For All wall. Each participation received a token representing a $50 donation from Providence Health Plan to these community partners.
OUTCOMES OVER OUTPUT
“Health For All is the
reason I love working for
Providence Health Plan.”
Providence Health Plan Caregiver
From a qualitative perspective, the booth was the star of the show. We received a constant stream of attendee traffic, with many people exchanging words of gratitude and telling their own stories of what Health For All means to them.
DONATED
+$390K
+15.6M
MEDIA IMPRESSIONS
PARTICIPANTS
+500
+1
NATIONAL STAGE