Brand building from the bottom up

by Jeff Shaw

More than just the look and feel, a community’s brand requires execution by entire staff.

By Jeff Shaw

When consumers think about a strong, established brand like Coke, they aren’t imagining “red” or “script font.” They visualize about all the adjectives that brand represents — sweet, cold, refreshing.

It’s easy to consider a seniors housing community’s brand to be simply its logo and color scheme. But when it comes to a service industry like seniors housing, it’s not that simple, according to leading seniors housing marketers and operators.

The image a brand presents needs to match the actual boots-on-the-ground reality of a community, or else a branding campaign could do more harm than good.

“Companies promise to deliver what their brands represent,” says Cherie Dupor, vice president of marketing at Chicago-based Senior Lifestyle Corp. (SLC), one of the largest owners and operators in the country. “It tells consumers who you are and what you stand for.”

A brand, in short, informs potential leads what they can expect when they visit the community.

The indicator of a successful brand, then, is how well the actual services offered match what a brand tells consumers, according to seniors housing marketing firm GlynnDevins based in Overland Park, Kan. Branding that looks luxurious, and then delivers luxury service and amenities, will be more successful than one that doesn’t match.

“It goes much more beyond website and logo and collateral and goes into the operations,” says Molly White, director of strategic planning for GlynnDevins. “The people in dining, marketing and every part of the community deliver on that experience. That experience makes that brand.”

For that reason, the first step of building a strong brand is to research how the community or company is already perceived in the market and single out existing strengths and weaknesses.

“Brand decisions can be really emotional. Operators have a connection to how they’ve always talked about their community,” says Sue McClure, president and COO at GlynnDevins. “Executives need to get out of that and see the community the same way the market does. It might change branding strategies a bit.”

Once a community’s current and ideal future position within the market is established, branding materials can then be built to match.

A brand is also an opportunity to show off the differentiators that make a community stand out from the competition, according to Dave Martino, chief creative officer for the senior living division of Minneapolis-based Bluespire Senior Living, formerly Martino & Binzer.

Communities frequently think they’re trumpeting their benefits, but are instead blending in with every other community.

“Because senior living is a somewhat homogenized product, we hear all the same stuff all the time — our people make the difference; we really care about our residents; we have a great wellness program; we have great dining,” says Martino. “Your brand becomes either part of your differentiation or it completely muddles the water.”

Good research can help communities define what makes them stand out from the crowd, and then the brand can be built around that.

But simply looking good isn’t enough. In order for a brand to succeed, its promise needs to be understood and executed at every level of the company.

 It takes a village

Communities tend to fall short when it comes to delivering on the experiential part of the brand, explains Martino. “They spend all this money and build great campaigns, then there’s a huge disconnect with the actual experience in the community.”

Martino recommends that all levels of operations — healthcare, dining, wellness and every other department — be part of the brand-building process so they understand and provide service that matches the brand put forth.

An important first step to getting the whole team on board is to make sure everyone understands that good branding doesn’t change anything at the community, according to Lisa Pearre, principal and executive vice president of Maryland-based seniors housing marketing firm Love & Company. Instead, branding should accentuate the positive attributes of a community that already exist.

“We’re not changing something, we’re drawing out what already exists,” she says. “If we were to go in and create something that doesn’t exist, the organization wouldn’t be able to deliver on that.”

All branding should be “inward facing” first so the whole company understands the messages being put out, adds Pearre. Getting the entire company on the same page is especially important in the sales process.

If prospective residents receive an inconsistent message at different points in the sales process — for example, if ad materials accentuate affordability but the sales team tries to sell luxury amenities — they may just decide to look at another community that’s clearer about its benefits.

“If the audience is confused, they move onto the next option that makes them feel better about it,” says Pearre. “If everyone’s singing from the same hymnal, it’s going to have a much greater impact.”

Having the staff and residents on board with the brand is the single largest key to success, she adds.

“If employees and residents feel included and good about the new identity and how that’s expressed, they’re going to be the cheerleaders. They’re going to be some of the biggest supporters that help the organization make that brand whole.”

The branding needs to go deep into the physical buildings themselves, as well, according to Robert Adams, partner at Richmond, Va.-based marketing firm SB&A and its marketing research arm Brooks Adams Research.

This can include renaming buildings and rooms — creating a named restaurant in line with the branding rather than simply calling it the “Dining Hall,” for example.

“Give your apartment buildings names that help fulfill your brand and your mission,” says Adams. “We’re also helping organizations name, brand and develop their wellness programs.”

Senior Lifestyle Corp. even extends its brand to employee-resident interaction. The company only includes first names on name badges “not only so it’s more easily read, but it expresses that we want you to call us by our first name,” says Dupor. “You wouldn’t call a family member by their first and last name.”

In addition, all phone calls to SLC communities are answered, “it’s a beautiful lifestyle at (the name of the community).”

What’s more, the company never uses stock images in marketing materials, displaying only real photos of employees and residents as well as testimonials.

These branding techniques stretch across the company’s 170 communities, but not everything transfers from location to location. Each community keeps its own look and culture so that it can best match the region and clientele of the area.

Keeping communities unique is a strategy GlynnDevins supports. Although there are economies of scale to be found by using a single brand, McClure notes that a community can end up with a brand that doesn’t match reality.

“Forcing an outside brand onto an acquired or new community can dilute the brand,” says McClure. “Incorporating an outside brand involves understanding what the communities have in common and whether or not they are able to consistently deliver on the brand benefits that matter in each market.”

However, not all companies subscribe to this theory. Brookdale Senior Living, the country’s largest seniors housing owner, last year acquired Emeritus Senior Living, the eighth largest owner at the time. The combined company, headquartered in Brentwood, Tenn., is still developing its rebranding campaign to bring all properties under the Brookdale name. 

Although Brentwood has described the process of rebranding as challenging in its quarterly reports, the company is confident it will see major efficiencies with 976 properties under one banner.

Segmenting the audience

One of the tricky parts of marketing a seniors housing product is the wide variety of target customers. Seniors may be the true “consumer,” but adult influencers in the decision-making process often include friends and family representing a range of demographics.

Marketers recommend targeting the different audiences separately, then customizing the sales message to each group.

“A brand should be multifaceted,” says Love & Company’s Pearre. “There should be a lot of depth to it. You don’t need to bring up every point in every marketing piece that comes out, but an effective brand makes sure every single piece that comes out is consistent.”

Bluespire took this customizability online for a client recently by encouraging visitors to the website to create their own brochures for print or email based on the specific topics they are interested in.

One of the greatest marketing challenges of the seniors housing sector is that the prospective customers and the adult influencers have little knowledge of the product or its benefits. “They didn’t wake up this morning and say, ‘I can’t wait to look for seniors housing today,’” notes SLC’s  Dupor.

This means that marketing materials and sales team members have a difficult task: They must first explain what the product is and why the audience should want it. Only then can marketers further explain why the specific community is superior to its competitors.

“You really have to create the demand,” says GlynnDevins’ McClure. “That is at the core of what good advertising does.”

Occupancy problems are almost always directly correlated to branding problems, says Bluespire’s Martino. That can be due to bad pricing perception — “I can’t afford it” — or a negative brand perception — “That’s where all the old people go to die.”

“In the case of senior living, if the brand perceptions in the market are all dinged up, you can be sure the occupancy is affected,” says Martino. “It’s all about reputation and expectation. Those are the key drivers to a successful senior living brand.”

The importance of going digital

Not only are seniors becoming more knowledgeable about how to use the Internet, but younger family members also helping them. The role of the web in a seniors housing decision is constantly growing.

“One of the things we’re starting to see is grandchildren who are web savvy doing the upfront research for their parents, who are, in turn, trying to help their parents,” says Martino. “You have to create experiences online for the customer to get the information they need.” 

Online branding creates tricky issues if not handled carefully, though, warns Martino. He cites an example of a brand built on independent and active seniors, but posted pictures on Facebook of an event where the majority of residents are in wheelchairs. Increasingly, operators are looking at reputation management, a tool that was previously rare in the industry.

“We’re working with a lot of clients to track brand reputation online,” says GlynnDevins’ McClure. “Soon it will be commonplace for seniors to post an online review like we do when we travel or visit a restaurant. We’re seeing a significant uptick there.”

Additionally, Senior Lifestyle Corp. reports that 70 percent of the company’s new leads come from online sources such as the company website or banner ads.

But digital branding is not just about the sales process. 

SLC recently rolled out an internal social media platform for its employees named CHEERS (a reference to the immensely popular TV sitcom of the 1980s and early 1990s set in a Boston bar “where everybody knows your name”). The system allows employees to communicate across the company and give digital “recognitions” of each other’s positive efforts.

The company averages 585 recognitions per day across its 170 communities, which Dupor credits for greater brand awareness within the company and happier employees.

“The program has really bridged the gap between corporate and the communities.”

The system even includes rewards points based on recognition from peers. Employees can redeem points for prizes such as gift cards, electronics or vacations.

Measuring results is key

Unlike a more direct marketing campaign, the results of branding are difficult to track. Without a concrete return on investment, it can  be difficult to show that strong branding yields positive results.

GlynnDevins recommends resident satisfaction surveys to determine if a community is living up to the brand’s promise. 

SLC’s Dupor suggests that one way to advance the industry is to stop comparing brands within the sector, and instead look at the best brands in other industries for inspiration. 

“We have tended in the past to set our brand standards against our peers,” says Dupor. “Instead, seniors housing operators should compare themselves against best-in-class organizations overall.” 

Love & Company conducts brand awareness studies that gauge the success of a brand based on reputation in the surrounding community.

“Research is one way to measure impact of branding — benchmarking awareness ahead of time, then measuring what has changed against that same consumer group,” says Pearre. “Does the audience have a better understanding of the organization, what it stands for and what it provides?”

Pearre acknowledges that budgets are a major factor in the seniors housing sector, and that operators largely avoid an ad campaign solely to promote a new brand.

“But you take that brand and flow it into all marketing materials, and it becomes a part of your company.”

Pearre suggests annual budget benchmarks of $25,000 to $40,000 per sale for a start-up independent living community or major expansion, and $5,000 to $20,000 per sale for an existing community, depending on its census situation. However, she does note that many, many factors go into deciding a budget.

“For providers who want to explore what might be the right approach and investment for their organization, the best thing to do is talk to a professional marketing firm with extensive experience in our industry to explore options.”

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