We’ve done a brand audit
As part of our transformation programme at Well, marketing, comms and digital content all worked together on a brand audit.
I thought this was absolutely brilliant because:
- It’s so useful to break down silos and mix up teams. This rarely ever happens in companies. We found it to be super productive as it reminded us that we’re actually all working on the same thing.
- Sharing very different kinds of expertise got us clear insights and a clear way forward. We now know what our communication challenges are and what we can do about them.
For our brand audit we looked at:
- all printed marketing materials for customers
- website design, accessibility and content
- internal comms for colleagues in pharmacies — print and intranet
Analysing marketing materials — what we did
We got all printed marketing materials sent to the office from the warehouse. Boxes and boxes, every last item, down to stickers and price tags.
We then spent two days together in a room, putting everything up on boards, ordering it by communication channels like pricing information, leaflets, advertising etc.
The first thing that hit us was that we had never seen all this stuff together in one place. We realised how much there was and how, over the years, different designs and messages had developed.
We then looked for themes, for example:
- We use lots of different messages to promote the same thing.
- We have a mix of designs — some old, some new.
- Some things we talk about aren’t core to the business anymore.
We also checked the order numbers for our print materials. What do our pharmacy branches actually request from the warehouse? Can we make any assumptions from this?
Analysing colleague-facing communication
When we looked at all the paper forms and other comms for colleagues used in our pharmacies to understand what and how much we have. Again, we got everything up on boards and looked for themes.
Some things stood out straight away:
- Wow! there’s a lot of paper!
- What are all these forms for? Do we use them?
- The language doesn’t really match anymore how we talk to customers.
Digital audit — what we did
Paul, our designer, did an accessibility and design audit of the website. He looked at how easy it is for people using, for example, screen readers or voice recognition tools to use the site or the different styles we created over the years for images and buttons.
We also went through all the content to check if it’s still relevant to our core business activities.
What we learned
- We have too much stuff — both for customers and colleagues. We need to focus on what’s core for the business.
- Order numbers show that the most popular items have some sort of practical aspect to them, for example leaflets that include a consent form.
- We put out too many messages to our customers. We need to decide on core messages and work out which channels to promote these in and in what format.
- Since we launched our beta site there’s a discrepancy between online and print design and content. We need to be consistent.
- The way we talk to colleagues and the way we talk to customers has to be the same.
What we got out of all this
We documented these activities and our findings in a slide deck to share around Well and decided on some immediate and some longer-term actions.
Some things we can do now:
- Figure out what kind of printed materials do we still need for customers. What’s better covered online?
- Work out our core messages to customers — we have lots of customer insights from research done recently for our new digital projects.
- Create some sample content for colleagues that’s easy to use and matches how we talk to customers online.
Why it was great to
Our brand audit will lead to a brand review. But that’s a bigger undertaking. Our approach is to start with some manageable tasks and then build it up from there.
For me it was great to see the appetite for change at Well and to think about design and content in a broader way, that is across all the channels we use to communicate with customers and colleagues.
