At the recently concluded HIMSS25, the annual conference of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, AI was the clear trend of the year. HIMSS President Harold Wolf joked in his opening remarks that he challenged attendees to find ten booths that didn’t mention AI. After walking the floor, it was clear this was an apt assessment.
If you looked carefully though, there was an interesting counterbalance to this evolution in healthcare technology—the need to maintain the human touch in the care experience. The keynote address, “Shaping the Future of Healthcare: A Collaborative Care Journey Where Technology and Humanity Coexist,” seemed poised to address this, but mostly skirted around the edges—although pediatric care robots Lumi and Nova did raise interesting questions about what constitutes a “personal touch.” A later session, “From Data to Dialogue: Transforming Charts into Patient-Provider Relationships,” really delved into the theme fully. The speakers started by taking us back to the early days of family physicians who ushered you from cradle to grave, before pondering how AI can help foster a similar relationship in today’s complex health system.
It is indisputable that AI has the power to create efficiencies. To streamline workflows. To gather and digest data at an unprecedented rate. But in healthcare, as in so many industries, the challenge is how to capitalize on those efficiencies while still creating a warm, welcoming experience.
It is a question of engagement: for clinicians, how to engage meaningfully with their patients. For technology companies, how to engage meaningfully with providers and payers to understand their challenges and enable them to deliver better outcomes for those same patients.
This challenge, this question of how to engage meaningfully, is one that brands grapple with every day. And, perhaps ironically, it is a challenge that AI is better equipping us to address. Brands can now learn more about their audiences than ever before. They can conduct social listening, to hear consumers’ own words about a brand and its competitors. They can run predictive models, to map the true causal relationships between variables and understand which attributes drive results. They can build machine learning models that predict marketing and brand ROI.
In all those cases though, AI only provides the foundation. You need human intellect, human empathy, human creativity, to take this information and build meaningful brand interactions. Just as clinicians, and those who partner with and support them, are recognizing that the proper role for AI is in addition to, not in replacement of. And that the way to deliver the best care experience is to keep humanity in the equation.
I recently heard an anecdote about a top executive who, upon visiting a client, was asked, “why are you here?” The client was curious that this executive would come out personally, rather than sending a junior employee. He didn’t think his account was “worth” the executives’ time.
Is this the new normal? Working at a) an agency, b) that represents many B2B, service-oriented firms, all of whom aim to deliver service excellence, I find this distressing.
I am very much in favor of the greater efficiencies technology can afford us. Sometimes, a video call can get the job done, and we all know there are certainly meetings that could have been an email. But there is still a time and a place for, quality in-person time. And sometimes, just making the effort to be there is a statement in and of itself—as the anecdote above shows.
A brand consultancy, like any firm, is above all a people business. We need to understand the people behind the brands, to help them articulate those brands in an authentic way. Here at Tenet, we pride ourselves on working collaboratively, ensuring the final product is something we helped our clients realize, not something we dictated to them. All of this takes a level of connection. We can make those connections in many ways, and technology frequently plays a part in that, particularly when working with global, remote teams. But at key moments in any engagement, we still find it invaluable to be there, in person, to feel and feed off the energy in the room.
Does this now count as “concierge” service? Has the highly engaged executive become the elusive phantom of the business world? Based on the many dedicated, invested clients with whom we work, I would say no. But maybe it’s selection bias—maybe, because those are our values, we are engaged by clients who value the same.
We live in the age of the listicle—short, consumable bits of information served up through our apps. In that context, how do marketers build an enduring brand narrative?
There is no one answer, and there are many brands out there succeeding in unique ways. But there are sound guiding principles that can set you up for success—presented in easy list format:
Develop an authentic yet aspirational brand platform
Make sure all campaigns ladder up to that unifying platform
Maintain a consistent brand voice in all communications
Tailor by audience and/or channel without losing your brand essence
Sounds simple, right? Not exactly.
Digging a little deeper, your brand platform should be centered on a big, universal idea that captures who you are now (authentic) while giving you room to grow in the future (aspirational.) It should be brought to life through a messaging framework that considers who your target audiences are and what they are particularly interested in. For those executing your marketing, a key part of this platform and framework is a defined brand personality which translates into tone-of-voice guidelines. And while your platform should be evergreen—barring a rebrand—your messaging framework can and should be a living thing. As audience concerns and interests shift, you need to continue showing how your unique value meets their needs in ways other cannot.
If properly executed, this gives you a flexible toolbox of brand elements to work with. And this is where short(er) lived campaigns come in—they allow you to focus in on a single idea or theme at a time that resonates with audiences in a unique way. With intelligent oversight, these campaigns can combine to create a narrative arc that reinforces both your brand platform and the lived experiences customers have with your brand.
Nike offers an excellent example of these principles in practice. For more than 50 years, the brand has stayed true to itself while remaining relevant and interesting to audiences.
While the company was founded in 1964, we’ll begin our history in 1971 with the adoption of the Nike, Inc. name. From day one, the founders knew what this brand was about: athleticism and empowerment. The name itself comes from the Greek goddess of victory, nicely encapsulating the underlying brand premise.
In 1977 Nike ran its first brand ad campaign, “There is no finish line.” The campaign notably featured no products. A 1988 campaign brought us the famous slogan, “Just Do It”—probably one of the most-well know and, yes, enduring brand slogans of our day. In more recent times, the summer 2024 campaign, “Winning Isn’t for Everyone” featured “a collective of the world’s greatest athletes, all motivated by victory.” Across these various campaigns, Nike has featured inspirational headlines and copy such as:
“Beating yourself is a never-ending commitment.”
“Do things history could only dream of.”
“It’s only a crazy dream until you do it.”
“You can’t raise the bar without raising a little hell.”
Nike runs two types of ad campaigns: brand campaigns like those listed above and product campaigns. While product campaigns of course focus in on a product, usually shoes, brand campaigns consistently choose to feature athletes only—a way of not-so-subtly telling customers, we exist for you. In fact, Nike’s current homepage animation makes this subtext into text, reading, “We serve kids/pros/dreamers/women/teams/coaches/men/beginners/girls/rebels/athletes* *If you have a body, you are an athlete”
Overall, Nike consistently excels at creating brand communications that both work as a single touchpoint and help build a clear, enduring brand narrative. It is no wonder Nike is considered one of today’s most valuable brands.
Whether to rebrand is not a decision to be made lightly. Factors such as if your brand is setting you up for success, how much equity your brand has and if you have permission from target audiences to change all come into play. But one element that often gets overlooked are the real, tangible costs associated with introducing and maintaining a new brand. For a new company, these are simply the cost of doing business. In the case of a rebrand, however, you need to consider whether you can fully support a new brand. If not, now may not be the time for a big change.
Costs can generally be grouped into one of four categories:
Creation: cost to create a brand platform, name and logo
Protection: cost to file and maintain the trademark(s)
Promotion: cost to build awareness and engagement with target audiences
Governance: cost of ongoing, required brand management
Creation: Cost to create a brand platform, name and logo
Even the largest companies with the deepest marketing and creative benches frequently look to outside help—namely, branding agencies—when the need for a new brand arises. Once engaged, diligent agencies will follow a tried-and-tested process to take you from your starting point to a solid brand foundation.
A typical creation process begins with a robust discovery phase that may include qualitative research alone or, if budgets allow, quantitative research and social listening. The next step is a strategy phase, to develop a brand platform that can anchor all creative development and communications.
Next comes creative development, the process of generating and clearing names, including knockout IP searches, developing logo options and look-and-feel designs, and wrapping all that up in usage guidelines.
At this point, some also choose to conduct validation research, to test concepts with target audiences and refine as needed before fully launching the brand.
Protection: Cost to file and maintain the trademark(s)
If a company is fortunate enough to have a legal department capable of trademark clearance and registration, out-of-pocket costs may be kept to filing fees. If not, you are also looking at consultative legal fees. As for those filing fees, there are application fees for each trademark, name and/or logo, for a single class of goods in either the US only or internationally through the Madrid Protocol. Those costs can increase, sometimes significantly, if you are:
Filing in multiple classes
Filing in multiple countries (called “contracting parties”)
Not actually using the brand commercially yet (filing on an “intent-to-use basis”)
Missing requirements in your application
Maintaining these trademarks brings another set of fees. In the US, every ten years you must file to show you are using the brand commercially (or explain why you are excused from doing so) as well as to renew your trademark. Similar filings are also required under the Madrid Protocol. And if, after five years of use, you want to claim “incontestable rights,” that involves another fee.
Promotion: cost to build awareness and engagement with target audiences
Promotion is, without a doubt, the costliest part of the equation. It is also where companies have the most discretion as to where, and how much, to spend. However, insufficient investment can cause a brand to wither on the vine.
When launching a new brand, there are both the implementation and launch costs as well as the year-over-year marketing spend to consider. As a point of reference, the average annual marketing budget is 9.2% of revenue according to the Fall 2023 CMO Survey.
After the basic building blocks—brand platform, name, logo, look-and-feel—have been developed, usually the next step is to create a library of templates and marketing assets—such as PowerPoint presentations, brochures, product sheets, email templates, etc.
Next comes launch planning—essentially introducing your new brand and what it stands for to internal and external audiences.
You will likely also need either a new or redesigned website for your brand. Most brands only have a “brochure” site, but consumer-facing brands may also need an e-commerce component. A website may also require one-time search-engine optimization (SEO) keyword research as well as ongoing costs for hosting and maintenance, SEO monitoring and optimization and search-engine marketing (SEM).
You also may want to develop a content marketing strategy. This is all about delivering the right messages to the right audiences, in the right place, at the right time. SEM would likely be factored into this plan, creating a slight overlap in budgets. This content market strategy is in turn implemented through things like advertising, PR, thought leadership and other marketing activities appropriate for your brand.
Finally, you may choose to develop a suite of data science tools to aid marketing decision-making. Common tools include predictive/prescriptive modeling, NLP/text analytics and advanced forecasting.
Governance: cost of ongoing, required brand management
There are two aspects to governance: internal management, to ensure the materials you produce are using the brand properly, and external management, to ensure others are neither misusing nor infringing on your trademark.
Internal enforcement usually starts with an ounce of prevention in the form of employee engagement training. Often, a portion of this training is specifically targeted to a group of brand ambassadors who can help champion the brand internally and answer questions that arise. Larger, multi-office organizations frequently also opt for a brand center, a digital repository of guidelines or standards, training and assets. A brand center also requires ongoing hosting and maintenance—which can likely be bundled with website hosting and maintenance for cost savings. Brand training and brand centers are particularly helpful if you have any external partners who create content or materials for you.
For external management, some turn to active trademark monitoring. There are a variety of software and service options available, and prices vary based on how frequently you check, how in-depth the check is and how much analysis is provided. The second part of external management that can incur costs is legal action for trademark protection. Costs can again vary widely based on what action is required, from filing a Letter of Protest with the USPTO to trying a lawsuit. One important factor to keep in mind: if you do not take action against trademark infringement, it can damage your ability to maintain that trademark.
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As all of these costs make clear, the decision to rebrand is a large commitment. If there is a strong enough business case though, you may decide it is the right move for you.
Patagonia is a brand that is so eco-friendly their CEO would rather teach you how to repair your fleece than sell you a new one. As a certified B Corp, their brand promise is built on environmental activism, placing business philanthropy at least on par with profits. At The North Face, on the other hand, they believe “the best way to be sustainable is to make product[s] that would last a lifetime.” As a result, their brand promise is focused on innovation and durability.
We view a brand promise as the core idea that unifies your brand. It is a distillation of your brand positioning, which is in turn built on a foundation of positioning attributes. These attributes range from foundational – meaning you must have them simply to be in your industry – to differentiating – meaning they are distinctive and set you apart from your competition. These elements, collectively your “brand platform”, are internal but drive the outward expression of your brand – including in marketing communications.
This means that while we may not be able to see the brand platforms for Patagonia and The North Face, we can infer certain priorities based on their external communications including websites, advertising and press interviews, among other things. For both brands, environmentalism / sustainability is present in their communications, but it plays a very different role for each.
For The North Face, environmentalism seems to be a foundational attribute. Sustainability is important to the brand – for example, “Protect” is one of their three core tenets of corporate responsibility, alongside “Product” and “Empower.” However, with so many other outdoor and sportswear companies focusing on their environmental credentials, The North Face feels they need something more. For them, that “something more” is making the product the hero – but sustainability still gets its play, with the idea of creating less waste implicit in their claims about durability.
For Patagonia, on the other hand, their environmental mission is their prime differentiating attribute. In the words of the founder’s nephew, “There was a strong sense from the beginning of wanting to protect the wild places.” Their “Provisions” line of sustainable food, a focus on protecting their supply chain and “Patagonia Action Works” – a network to connect individuals with grassroots environmental activists – are just some of the ways they demonstrate their dedication to corporate stewardship.
Patagonia is not alone in this trend. It is becoming increasingly common to hear brands talking about their “purpose,” beyond delivering shareholder value – at Cannes Lion 2019 the topic was discussed extensively by top brands including Unilever and P&G. The key here is not to view it as an either/or proposition –brands are seeing that authentically committing to a higher purpose can actually increase revenue from socially-minded consumers who want to reward like-minded corporations. But that word, “authentically” is pivotal – if brands are talking the talk but not walking the walk consumers will notice.
Grappling with the role of environmentalism is not a new struggle for brands, and particularly consumer brands that generate “stuff.” As far back as 1987 the U.N. published a report opining on how corporations could reconcile sustainability and development. The issue has certainly gained more attention in modern times with Millennial – and now Gen Z – influencers increasingly holding brands accountable for their operations. Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) is becoming a byword from boardrooms to trading desks, and instances of corporations behaving badly can always be counted on to blow up social media.
What all this tells us is, in today’s culture no modern consumer brand can afford to ignore its environmental footprint – even those brands whose “purpose” lies outside sustainability. However, it is important that you approach the topic in a way that is authentic to your brand and credible to stakeholders, both internal and external. As the successes of both Patagonia and The North Face clearly demonstrate, there is no one right way to incorporate environmental sustainability into a brand platform.
About the author
Laura Scharf is an experienced strategist who has played an integral part in (re)branding and activating dozens of brands. From leading discovery—including IDIs and competitive audits—to crafting authentic, differentiating positions to defining architecture and messaging, she brings creative problem-solving and grace under pressure to all her projects. Current clients include Edwards Lifesciences, Gore, Mastercard, ACA Compliance Group, Hartford Steam Boilers and Trinity, among others.
Before joining Tenet, Laura was a strategic account director at Starfish and a brand strategist at TippingGardner. Her expertise spans B2B, B2C, and non-profit with a particular focus in professional services. She has an MBA from the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University.
