Think about your favorite brand. Perhaps it’s a technology brand, as six out of the top 10 most valuable brands worldwide are in this category. Maybe it’s an apparel or automotive brand, also in the top 10. In thinking about your pick, try to define what appeals to you most about it. Chances are you like what this brand represents in terms of unique products, services, and/or business practices. You identify with its spokespeople or leadership. You trust its quality and consistency.
The brand you develop for your organization’s wellness initiative should appeal to your employees in the same way. Your brand is a unique image that creates an identity. It may be composed of signs, symbols, designs and words. It should reflect your organization, its vision and mission.
Your wellness initiative brand will serve many purposes. It gives your initiative an identity; it creates credibility; it makes your initiative visible; it positions wellness as important for your organization; and it inspires employees. The wellness brand is made up of the initiative name, logo and tagline.
Most organizations have a holistic view of employee wellness. Keep that in mind and remember to include these characteristics when developing your name:
- Meaningful and descriptive
- Short and upbeat
- Easy to remember
- Broad enough to cover all that is wellness
- Friendly and appropriate for ALL employees
Ask for your employees to be involved in the process – they can be a rich source of creativity when it comes to developing your name (and sometimes your logo and tagline). A naming contest lets employees know your organization is committed to their health and wellbeing. It’s also a great way to build participation early on in your wellness initiative. Here’s how to go about it:
- Announce the contest.
- Collect the entries in a way that is fully accessible to all employees.
- Have the Wellness Committee review the entries and select three. Choose names that best fit your organization, wellness vision and mission.
- Share three names with employees and have them vote.
- Award a prize to the employee who contributed the winning name.
Once you have a name, develop a logo and tagline:
- The tagline should capture the theme of your program and reflect the concepts in your vision and mission statements.
- Work with a graphic designer, your marketing department, or an artistically talented employee to develop a logo, the visual imprint of your program.
- You can also use existing company artwork or stock art to develop your logo.
- Remember all images should reflect your organization and its employees.
Lastly, finalize your brand and develop a color palette and usage standards:
- Combine your name, logo and tagline to develop your brand.
- The team that helped you with the tagline and logo can help you combine the name, logo and tagline into a single package.
- Develop a set of complementary colors. Your brand will likely have a few colors in it.
- Develop a set of rules for use of your brand. Rules will specify how your brand is positioned on communication materials, how the colors are used, etc.
Once your brand is finalized, it’s important to use it consistently, build upon its credibility, and evolve its identity over time as your initiative evolves. This will help keep employees engaged.
In developing their Worksite Wellness initiative logos, many Working on Wellness participants used this process. The Asian Task Force for Domestic Violence (ATASK) is a non-profit organization of 38 employees based in the Greater Boston and Lowell. ATASK’s wellness logo builds on its organizational logo concepts while integrating the name and mission of the wellbeing initiative.
Bristol Community College has more than 1,000 employees across five campuses in Southeastern Massachusetts. It’s Live Well logo embraces the holistic approach to wellbeing at work defined in its mission incorporating a calming color palette.
How might you build the brand that’s best for your organization?