Innovate Care Group — Brand positioning and visual identity for a complex care provider
Brand strategy · Positioning · Brand messaging · Visual identity · Brand guidelines
Healthcare and complex care · London
The context
Innovate Care Group provides complex care in people's homes, supporting individuals with significant clinical and everyday needs.
The business was expanding beyond London and the Home Counties, with ambitions to grow nationally, and had achieved a Good rating from the CQC at its first inspection.
However, the existing brand no longer reflected the organisation Innovate was becoming.
I was brought in by the leadership team to reposition the business and develop a new brand that could support its next stage of growth.
The challenge
Complex care presents a particular branding challenge. The person receiving care isn't always the person making or funding the decision.
Commissioners need clinical confidence, families need reassurance, and clients want to know how care will improve their everyday lives. The brand also needed to attract and retain skilled carers.
The challenge was to communicate effectively with these different audiences without becoming overly clinical, generic or losing the human side of what Innovate does.
The approach
The opportunity was to move beyond talking about care itself and focus on what good care makes possible.
Clinical expertise, quality standards and CQC ratings were essential, but they weren't what made Innovate different. The real value was in the lives being changed through its care.
A day in the garden. A football match. Time at the seaside with family. One client had been able to get outside after spending four years at home.
Innovate was already creating these outcomes. The opportunity was to make them central to the brand.
This became the foundation of the positioning and inspired the brand promise, Together Towards Tomorrow, capturing the shared commitment to helping people live fuller, more independent lives.
The work
I developed the brand strategy and positioning, including the mission, vision, values, value proposition and brand promise.
The strategy was built around five distinct audiences, with tailored messaging that reflected their different needs and priorities.
I also created a storytelling framework to help Innovate communicate the real impact of its care through individual client experiences, supported by a clear and adaptable tone of voice.
From there, I developed a distinctive visual identity, introducing a confident purple and teal palette, a smile incorporated into the wordmark and a more expressive alternative to the clinical conventions of the sector.
The complete system was documented in brand guidelines covering typography, colour, imagery, graphic assets and application, giving Innovate a consistent identity that could evolve with the organisation.
The impact
The new brand gave Innovate a clearer, more distinctive position in a competitive sector, shifting the focus from the care it provides to the difference that care makes in people's lives.
The storytelling framework has become an ongoing part of how the business communicates, using real client experiences to demonstrate the impact of its work and build trust with families, commissioners and prospective employees.
Since the rebrand, Innovate has continued to grow, expanding its team, entering new regions, securing new care contracts and supporting more people.
The strategy and identity have provided a strong foundation for this growth, helping Innovate communicate its purpose, demonstrate its value and build its reputation in the sector.
Tell me about your project
If your organisation is struggling to communicate its value to different audiences, I'd be happy to help you find a clearer way forward. Tell me where you are and I’ll come back to you within a working day.