Dayton Children’s Hospital Launches New Brand and Transforms Management of Marketing Assets

Dayton Children’s Hospital is a stand-alone pediatric hospital in Dayton, Ohio. They have 6 off-site facilities, 2 campuses, and are home to 3100 employees. The hospital sees nearly 7,000 inpatient children each year and receives 85,000 visits to the emergency room alone. Dayton Children’s holds a rich history in the city, which originally started as the Barney Children’s Medical Center in 1967.

The Challenge

In 2013, the organization announced a new patient tower kicking off an amazing transformation in improving quality of care and patient experience by hiring dozens of new subspecialists and implementing state-of-the art technology. While this transformation was happening within the hospital walls, the marketing team felt that the community was not aware of these remarkable changes. In early 2015, the team released a brand study to understand the community’s perception of Dayton Children’s.

Simultaneously, the marketing team was addressing a lack of consistency with their old logo. Over the 42 years the logo had existed, there had been slight changes in font, name, etc. which led to strong inconsistencies. The solution to create logo consistency and change perceptions was to create a whole new logo mark and rebrand. The new brand was announced in March 2016.

As the rebranding work began and marketing started diving into existing assets, we asked employees to describe the aesthetic of the new hospital spaces and the current marketing materials we were distributing to patient families. To describe the new spaces, employees used words like clean, bright, sophisticated, innovative, child-friendly, and inviting.

In contrast, they described the current patient family materials as inconsistent, unprofessional, confusing, not on brand, and inconsistent in voice and writing style.

Additionally, when looking at a group of marketing materials together, there were no clear indicators that they were from Dayton Children’s Hospital.

Why MarcomCentral

As part of the new brand launch, the Marketing department determined they needed a platform to organize and manage their brand assets to ensure the new standards would be upheld.

They selected MarcomCentral and set specific goals for their success:

• Consistency for all materials
• Ordering ability for employees of static materials
• Creation of custom materials
• Approved, on-brand photos (no more clip art!)
• Seamless “Amazon-like” experience

The MarcomCentral marketing portal was named the Brand Resource Center and launched with fresh, attractive marketing assets, including a new “Whirligig” logo, that represents the innovative and sophisticated hospital that they are.

The Results Speak for Themselves

Today, the Brand Resource Center is the one-stop shop for all things marketing. Users have 24/7 access to brand guidelines, fliers, business cards, uniforms and logo wear, and other logo’d items like coffee mugs, umbrellas and lunch boxes. All marketing assets are now approved prior to being placed in the Brand Resource Center, which ensures a consistent design and writing style across the hospital’s many touchpoints with patient families and staff.

Taking advantage of MarcomCentral’s flexible platform, the marketing department segmented their users into two groups: employees and referring physician offices. When a user logs in to the portal, they see options tailored to their marketing requirements. The customized interface helps users find exactly what they need quickly and boosts engagement by providing only relevant content to that individual.

Another key function for Dayton Children’s is built-in printing. The Marketing team worked diligently with their print vendors to connect them to the Brand Resource Center and to set up guidelines around delivery timelines and processes. Now, users can simply find a marketing piece they need and submit a printing request all from within the portal.

Today, 300 employees are trained across the organization and are using the Brand Resource Center daily. It has become the go-to resource for marketing and has reduced the number of calls and emails received by the Marketing Department. Materials representing the organization are now clip art-free and are representative of Dayton Children’s new brand image. Most importantly, the Brand Resource Center helped prove the value in consistent, sophisticated branding to help elevate perception of Dayton Children’s.