Building a brand architecture from the ground up.
Carpenter Group helped Universal American create a roadmap for unifying its localized offerings under a strong parent brand.
Situation
Can a company indefinitely maintain multiple brands in multiple markets?
After growing exponentially for years, Universal American (UA)—an entrepreneurial healthcare holding company—found itself the owner of many disparate, localized brands.
To support its many businesses, UA needed to maintain localized marketing teams to support a vast and complex library of product literature, which was becoming economically and logistically challenging. Further complicating matters was the fact that many of the company’s local brands within the Medicare supplemental insurance, Prescription Part D and HMO spaces had, over time, established significant brand equity in each of their local markets – often at the expense of the parent brand.
Finding itself at an important threshold, UA needed to decide between adopting a more centralized, national brand or continuing to support its segmented brand model.
Solution
A multi-phased approach toward building a unified brand.
Following an extensive review of the competitive and regulatory landscape as well as UA’s business strategy and current brand architecture, Carpenter Group recommended a multi-phased plan to bring UA’s disparate brands together. The first phase included boosting UA’s presence at the regional level by positioning each brand as a member of the UA family of specialty healthcare companies. Doing so allowed the parent company to gradually introduce itself into regional markets without diminishing the brand equity of the local brands.
The key to successfully migrating to a unified brand strategy, Carpenter Group suggested, would be to build a parent brand that captures and amplifies the differentiating strength of the individual UA companies: unusually strong relationships with local pharmacists, doctors and other caregivers. Carpenter Group recommended that UA position itself and its sub-brands around this “collaborative approach to good health” rather than simply focusing on plan features. This powerful story of connectivity, communication, and collaboration helps position UA as a network of people working together in the service of health.
With a unified brand architecture and roadmap for implementation, UA is well on its way to building a national brand.
