unmc vital campaign

background

The University of Nebraska Medical Center (“UNMC”) is a public center of health sciences research, patient care and education located in Omaha, Nebraska.

challenge

In 2010, UNMC underwent a full rebranding process with a large national firm. Through in-depth brand research, “vitality” surfaced as a fundamental brand theme organization-wide.

 

Though well-founded and strongly validated, internal stakeholders – from students and staff to medical faculty and executives – struggled with the word’s applicability to their everyday work life.

solution

David Day Associates conducted additional strategic research and discovered that although the two words are kin, the word “vital” resonated most strongly with UNMC’s stakeholders and emphasized that they, their work and their contributions are Vital.

 

We created an eye-popping wordmark for the internal campaign, elegantly articulated in the negative space of a square and punctuated with a bold period, substantiating that those working on the UNMC campus are vital, without hesitation and without question.

 

This campaign, supported by the organizational core values, came alive in on-campus signage and in “Vital Paks,” which were dual-purpose brochures/posters distributed to every internal stakeholder.

 

Furthering the dynamism of the Vital campaign, we created a set of four “Vital Pins,” each color of which is aligned with a core value. Through an internal URL or handwritten “Vital Note,” staff have the opportunity to nominate their peers for vital actions in their day-to-day work.

impact

People were empowered to understand, embrace and live the tenets of their new brand.

 

Today, displayed Vital Pak posters and lanyards laden with Vital pins are plentiful around campus, proving that we helped UNMC take a vital step to improve internal culture.