Branding Archives – Varsity Branding

Category: Branding

During our latest COVID-19 roundtable, communities talked about the changing moods in their respective states and exchanged advice for successful virtual events.

Dig into the summary below. Please also join us for our next roundtable, coming this week!

Please join us for our next roundtable discussion on Thursday, September 10, at noon ET.

Aging-services expert Scott Townsley from Trilogy Consulting will join us to discuss consumer research and other insights related to the pandemic.

For log-in information, please contact DDunham@VarsityBranding.com.

 

As more cities opened up, communities met virtually for roundtable #13 to discuss this week’s triumphs and tribulations.

Check out the recap of our discussion below. Please also join us for our next sales & marketing roundtable, coming up this week.

 

Join the next roundtable on June 25!

You are welcome to join our next roundtable discussion on Thursday, June 25, at 12 p.m. ET.

You don’t have to be a client to join — all are welcome. For call-in information, email DDunham@VarsityBranding.com.

As social distancing continues, communities came together for roundtable #9 to share their ideas and challenges. Robinson Smith, creative director at Varsity, joined our discussion to share insights on brand-centric messaging during quarantine.

Check out the takeaways below. You are also welcome to join our next sales & marketing roundtable, coming up this week.

Insights from Rob’s discussion on creative messaging:

Rob shared this video, which essentially highlights how painfully similar much of the COVID-19 advertising is.

  • Every commercial is exactly the same, with catchphrases like: “uncertain times,” “home” and “together.”
  • Brands want to let you know they were there for you in the past, are with you now and will be with you moving forward. While these messages of hope and empathy are important as we move forward, it’s critical not to lose sight of the brands we’ve worked so hard to establish. We need to make sure we’re not abandoning them, especially as normal community marketing will not return for quite some time.
  • While all communities want to communicate that they care about the safety of their team members and residents, they also should make sure that they are talking about their BRANDS and are leveraging the messages that they have put out into the marketplace and established over time.
  • At Varsity, we talk about branding and brand personalities in terms of archetypes. The caregiver archetype is typically the archetype of industry, so it’s not a long-term solution for individual community branding as we go forward. Communities need to be intentional about expressing their own voices — explorers, magicians, lovers — and make sure that the things that set them apart from competitors are being stated in true, unique and compelling ways.

Join the next sales & marketing roundtable on May 28!

We thank everyone for participating, and we invite you to join the next session on Thursday, May 28, at 12 p.m. ET.

Jackie Stone, Varsity VP of sales, will be joining us for part of the session to share her insights on virtual event topics and processes.

You don’t have to be a client to join — all are welcome. For call-in information, email DDunham@VarsityBranding.com.

 

‘Like it’ or not, we’ll never know, thanks to a new update being rolled out by Instagram that will prevent you from seeing how many likes the accounts you follow are receiving on their accounts. To see what this means for your brand, check out this infographic.

Even after three days in the steamy summer heat, my excitement about everything I learned at the LeadingAge Tennessee 2019 Annual Meeting & EXPO is just beginning to heat up. The theme was: “What if we helped people find passion and purpose?” The individuals I connected with at the show are doing that in amazing ways. They’re bringing generations together, leveraging strategies from other industries and approaching their challenges with a fresh perspective.

Without further ado, I’m excited to report back to you my top five “what-ifs” at the show:

1. What if we could integrate former foster youth into senior living communities?

While I was walking the floor, I spoke with Rosemary Ramsey, founder of The Victory Lap, an organization committed to matching youth, 18 to 21, who have aged out of the foster program, with open apartments at senior living communities. The community would be paid $900 per month (funded by the foster program in Tennessee) and would be asked to provide a job for the individual (at least 10 hours per week). The program is intended to give former foster kids a boost — with stable housing, employment opportunities and support from caring older adults — while meeting workforce challenges, filling otherwise vacant units and fostering intergenerational friendships. Look for an interview with Rosemary in a future blog post!

2. What if we could bring the principles of doula care to hospice?

A session on creating a doula program for hospice created some serious conference buzz. The program follows the principles of birthing doulas to help guide the individual and family/loved ones through the dying process.

3. What if we could find and retain top talent?

One of my favorite sessions, led by Matt Thornhill, stressed the need for transparency and inclusion when hiring. It was all about finding and retaining top talent. One example Matt referenced was the innovative 30/40 program by LifeSpire of Virginia in which certified nursing assistants are paid for 40 hours but are only required to work 30.

4. What if new residents could feel at home more easily?

I heard several people talking about a unique continuum concierge program discussed by Melissa Ward, vice president of clinical & regulatory affairs at Functional Pathways. The program promotes successful transitions and helps people stay in their current levels of care. Its tools include new resident orientations, resident-driven support groups, physician services, collaboration across the care continuum and more. Stay tuned for a future blog post about this innovative program.

5. What if we looked beyond a prospect’s age and income?

Last but not least, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention our session with co-presenter Robbie Voloshin of United Methodist Communities (UMC). Robbie celebrated her birthday that day! The talk covered an in-depth research study on which we had partnered with UMC. In short, the study shows how going beyond superficial demographics to interests and values can help organizations connect more deeply with the right prospects. Discussion centered around the core aspects of the study — the values statements and how they were ranked.

Have you had any what-if moments of your own? If so, drop me an email at DDunham@VarsityBranding.com. I’d love to hear about them.

We are proud to announce our participation in this year’s LeadingAge PEAK leadership summit, held March 18–21 in Washington, D.C.

The Varsity team has gone all-in this year, hosting a basecamp at zone 5 of the event. The theme of our basecamp is “Telling your story: connecting with tomorrow’s discerning customer.” All of our presentations will cover topics that relate to how aging services providers will need to grow and adapt their messaging in the coming years.

Keynote presentations will include:

  • “Positioning the Mission,” with Varsity President Wayne Langley
  • “Connecting with Consumers,” with Rob Smith, creative director, and Jackie Stone, vice president of sales consulting — both of Varsity
  • A panel discussion, hosted by Derek Dunham, Varsity’s vice president of client relations, where he will interview marketers to get their respective takes on how to get the most of an agency relationship
  • Kevin Purcell, of WildFig, who will demonstrate how data-driven decision-making can change the way you do business

In between these sessions, the Varsity team will be on hand to meet and discuss these topics and more with all of the attendees. We invite you to stop by and say hello!

Following PEAK, we plan to make a selection of our presentations available via videos on our website, so if you can’t attend in-person, be sure to check back to catch the highlights of the event.

Many aging services providers use Facebook as a means to engage with their current and future residents, families and supporters of the community. The platform has become a powerful tool for communities and marketers alike. But, after several years of building a quality Facebook presence, providers are now being warned about upcoming changes to how Facebook works, which can and will affect their accounts.

In a January 11, 2018, post to the Facebook blog, Adam Mosseri, head of News Feed at Facebook, announced that changes to the News Feed are being implemented. Says Mosseri, ”With this update, we will also prioritize posts that spark conversations and meaningful interactions between people. To do this, we will predict which posts you might want to interact with your friends about, and show these posts higher in the Feed. These are posts that inspire back-and-forth discussion in the comments…We will also prioritize posts from friends and family over public content…”

Obviously, these changes are going to be felt the most by organizations that operate a Facebook Page as part of their outreach efforts. Facebook expects that Pages will see their reach, video watch time and referral traffic decrease. While people will still see posts from pages they follow, Facebook will prioritize content that prompts conversation and interaction between users.

So, what can you do to ensure that your posts will still be seen by your target audience? Here are our top tips for keeping your content in front of your followers:

  1. Make your content engaging. We can’t stress this enough. The days of just posting a pretty picture or trying to promote an upcoming marketing event are over. Your content needs to elicit a response from your audience. Before you make a post, ask yourself, “Does this post inspire me to leave a comment or share it?” If it doesn’t, then you should go back to the drawing board.
  2. But don’t beg for engagement. Facebook announced that it will algorithmically degrade content that asks for engagement. This means that you shouldn’t end your post with, “Please leave a comment” or “Make sure to Like and share.” Again, your goal is to inspire this behavior organically.
  3. Use a mix of words and media to garner a response. Every post you make should have a picture or video attached. Studies have repeatedly shown that text-only posts receive far less engagement. However, this doesn’t mean that you can ignore the words that go along with the post. The corresponding text needs to be descriptive enough that someone who has no knowledge of the topic being presented could be moved to engage.

Facebook has a history of making changes to its platform that are initially resisted by the user base but, over time, have proven effective, making for a better user experience. We believe this round of changes will be in the same vein, requiring us to adapt to a changing paradigm that will make us smarter and more effective marketers in the future.

2017 was a trying year for aging services organizations across the country — and not just for the traditional reasons. Sure, costs went up, income from government plans went down, and the need to upgrade remained constant. But, as the year went on, it was the unexpected tragedies that caught the industry’s attention. Massive flooding permeated the Gulf Coast, wildfires blazed in the American West and, of course, there was a devastating fire that recently struck at Barclay Friends in Pennsylvania. These unexpected events can quite literally destroy lives and communities.

While we all like to think they could never happen to us, in 2017, many realized it could. This has led to a renewed interest in crisis communications plans across the aging services sector, with providers dusting off their three-ring binders, updating their plans and expanding them to include new media. One question that we often hear is, “What are the key things I should have in my crisis communications plan?” While an article such as this provides too little space to detail a full plan, we can share with you the three things that we look for in creating, revising or updating a crisis communications plan.

1. Is your leadership trained to talk to the media?

The aging services field has long benefited from sustained tenure in the C-Suite. Executives, especially CEOs, often stay with an organization for many years, becoming the face and voice of the brand. They become comfortable with local news organizations and inherently know how to speak to them through a lifetime of experience. Now many of those seasoned leaders are retiring, and a new crop of executives is taking over.

These new leaders may not be prepared to deal with a media firestorm that can explode after a tragedy. Taking some time, and budget dollars, for training your leadership in media relations could be a vital investment. There’s an art to speaking to reporters, especially when information is scarce and you are trying to be both honest with the public yet protect the privacy and safety of your residents, employees and volunteers. For these reasons, we heartily recommend media training for your leadership team.

2. Who is responsible for managing the digital media response?

When tragedy strikes, one of the first places people now turn to is digital media, such as Facebook, Twitter and the web. Have you incorporated these outlets into your crisis communications plan? Is there a system in place for the person responsible for updating these channels to receive approved messaging and post it in a timely manner?

Experienced social media and web managers are usually able to handle an onslaught of information requests, but in many aging services groups, the task of digital media management is left to the marketing team or a small team of communications professionals on the corporate level (who may not even be in the same area as an affected community). This is why it’s so crucial to identify a process for information disclosure through these channels, including who can approve a release of details, who will be doing the actual publishing of the information and a chain of command for answering difficult questions in a timely manner.

3. Are you prepared to deal with the aftermath?

The first 24 hours after an event occurs are the most critical — and, in the moment, may seem the most stressful. Are you and your team prepared for the intense scrutiny and stress that will come once the initial dust has settled?

For example, in the case of Barclay Friends, reporters immediately went digging for information about anything and everything related to the community. They quickly uncovered issues with fire protection equipment reported earlier in the year, placing a new focus on the community and creating another aspect for the media to latch onto. As investigations unfold and causes are determined, you should have a plan in place for managing media relationships in the weeks and months after an event occurs.

We get it — no one wants to think about dealing with a crisis. It’s also very difficult to show a return on investment for the costs of developing a crisis communications plan. At Varsity, we like to think of it as insurance. It’s a product that you pay for in hopes that you never have to use it, but it provides a peace of mind that can’t be overestimated Plus, should an event occur, you’ll be glad that you had a plan in place.

Potential residents and their families are increasingly turning to the internet to aid in their search for a retirement community. Nearly every community has a website, and most employ lead-generating tactics on them (contact page, downloadable brochures, etc.). But there is always room for improvement. Over a period of three weeks, we’ll provide you with three actionable tips that you can use to improve your digital footprint.

It’s Friday night, and you’re feeling great. You’re ready for an adventure, so you plan to try a new restaurant for dinner. Do you just pick one at random that you saw on a billboard? Probably not. You’re far more likely to give it a try if you’ve read glowing reviews on Yelp, Google or OpenTable. It makes sense, really. No one likes to go into a situation blind. The same sentiment goes for your potential residents.

The online reputation of your organization is just as critical to your success as Yelp reviews are to restaurants. The first step in improving that reputation is to know where people are looking for reviews. The biggest players, by far, are Google and Facebook. These sites allow you to review just about any product, with little to no oversight. Once a bad review appears on one of these pages, your only choice is to be open and transparent in your response. Unfortunately, most retirement communities aren’t even aware that these poor sentiments exist on the web — let alone how to respond to them.

One site that often gets overlooked is Glassdoor.com. Glassdoor is an employment site where potential employees can go to find reviews of an organization. It allows users to rate the interview process, share benefits information and comment on how they were treated as an employee. Have you looked to see if your organization is being reviewed on Glassdoor? Perhaps now is the time — especially as the employment market for skilled professionals, such as nurses, is getting more competitive.

Knowing what is being said about your organization is just the start. At Varsity, we help our clients be proactive instead of reactive. Businesses need to be actively establishing and managing their online reputations and working to build positive reviews on key websites. That way, when someone searches for a community, they’ll be overwhelmed with the positive reviews, while the negative ones are pushed to the bottom of the page.

When we’re working with a client on a potential brand position, we ask three questions: Is it true? Is it unique? And is it compelling? All three of those qualities need to come together for a brand to work its hardest. In previous posts, I covered true, unique and compelling in detail. A quick recap:

  • True: The claim you’re making must be true. Otherwise, people may try your product—but they won’t buy it again. Some examples of brands that didn’t live up to their advertising: the Ford Edsel, Surge soda and WOW Chips.
  • Unique: The Unique Selling Proposition (USP) first discussed in the ‘40s still holds true today. It’s critical to find something that makes your product truly different. It’s all about that one promise that no one else in the market can make.
  • Compelling: Last but not least, if a proposition is true and unique, but not compelling to customers, they won’t be moved to act. How can we be sure our promise is on track? Research. Research. Research. We should never assume we know what consumers think before checking in with them.

True. Unique. Compelling. The right brand position will be all three.

In the words of David Ogilvy, “The most important decision is how to position your product.” But how do we make that decision? When we’re developing a brand position, we always measure it by three criteria: It has to be true, it has to be unique and it has to be compelling. In this post, I’ll cover “compelling.”

A brand promise can be true and unique, but if consumers don’t care about it, then you won’t make any sales. So, how do we find out—before your message is plastered all over the marketplace—if it’s compelling to your customers?

By doing research. Lots of it. This is especially important in senior living, where the media constantly tells us what the next generation wants and needs. We can’t just paint this demographic with a broad brush. We need to know what prospective customers in your market want.

That’s where interviews, focus groups and other check-ins become really important. Sometimes clients don’t think they need to talk to consumers because they already know what they’ll say. But we can find nuggets of great value amidst the things we already know. And these insights can help craft a message that customers find truly compelling.

When our team is working with a client to develop a brand position, we run it through a three-part filter and ask: Is it true? Is it unique? And is it compelling? In this post, I’ll cover “unique,” and why it’s so important to land on a unique selling proposition (USP).

The USP is a concept developed by advertising legend Rosser Reeves for Ted Bates back in the ‘40s. Quite simply, it means finding the one promise you can make that the competition can’t.

The USP is as relevant today as it was back then. In fact, Michael Porter put a twist on the USP with his philosophy, “Aim to be unique, not the best.” At Varsity, we agree with that thinking. Our team is always searching for that core truth that makes a client unique in the marketplace.

It’s not easy to find a benefit that separates your organization from the rest, but it’s critical to do so. That uniqueness doesn’t have to be related to a physical structure or amenities. It can be intangible, like an attitude, a personality or an entire culture.

Even when you find a brand position that’s true and unique, it still won’t connect with your customers unless they find it compelling. I’ll cover that in a future post.

Managing a successful organization has never been easy, but given today’s rapidly evolving changes, the leadership challenge, at least for most of us, is greater than ever.  Pressures from a variety of stakeholder groups compete for our time, attention and resources. More than ever, distractions seem to intercept our good intentions. Results—favorable ones—don’t occur without a plan. Exceptional results happen only when the plan is well executed. Unfortunately, too many of us invest far more time in developing the plan than in managing or executing the plan.

More Than an Exercise

Strategic planning is a discipline that should be logical, practical and manageable. Many of the plans I review these days seemingly lack depth and evoke far too little action. Now that we have adopted the concept of strategic planning, let’s ensure we introduce plans to our teams that produce the desired results.  Planning should become integrated into our patterns of management at all layers of the organization, not simply an exercise for the board and a few select executives.

Missing Components

Two areas of planning I recommend consistently including in your strategic planning process are innovation and culture. Certainly these areas are difficult to articulate, but they are crucial to your success in driving the desired results. Whether you are competing for residents or employees, your ability to establish objectives for enhancing the culture in which your services are delivered creates a competitive advantage. In great work cultures, great ideas can come from any team member in any department. Setting the tone for culture is the foundation to creating a more innovative environment in which people want to contribute.

Monitoring Success

People want to know how their performance stacks up against expectations. Routine reporting on key accomplishments against the plan is often missing beyond the executive suite. Success happens when the entire organization is aware of the strategic plan as well as how they are doing in completing the objectives driven by that plan. Measuring and communicating success is more than simply crafting an email or printing a newsletter. Engaged teams want a personal account from leadership on how well they are achieving the goals for the organization.

Link to Performance

Is your organization performing at its absolute best? Why or why not? Is your strategic plan a living document embraced by your entire organization, or something that occupies space on your shelf only to be discussed at board meetings? Are you winning the “war for talent”—are the brightest people coming to work at your organization?

It is no longer enough to be good at anything—consumer expectations for your brand are high. If your organization is performing at a level that doesn’t create “wowed” customers, your plan needs work, and your executional tactics need attention. The journey of successful strategic planning and organizational performance must get your attention daily.

It’s a good week for “timeless female empowerment.” Blanche, Sophia, Dorothy, Rose, Baddie and Mylie are all in the spotlight.

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At Varsity, we’re major fans of the Golden Girls, and we’ve covered their innovative living situation in a previous blog post. That’s why we’re so excited about the news that a proposed Legos set featuring the groundbreaking ’80s sitcom is moving through the review process. The project, created by longtime “Golden Girls” fan Samuel Hatmaker, has now gathered 10,000 supporters, which means it qualifies for Lego review and has a chance to be produced. The story was all over social media and got picked up by USA Today, TVWeek, Ellen, Huffington Post and other news outlets.

Another ageless female also received a golden opportunity. On April 6, DimepieceLA, a chic street-style fashion brand, announced that 86-year-old grandmother Baddie Winkle will be featured in the new Dimepiece “state of mind” campaign. On the Dimepiece blog, the company announced, “Our brand has always stood for timeless female empowerment and continues to encourage this mindset in our latest campaign.”

Baddie has 745,000 Instagram followers, and one of her biggest admirers is Millennial megastar Miley Cyrus. Miley is such a huge Baddie fan that she photoshopped herself into one of the Dimepiece pool-site fashion shots and posted it on her Instagram page. Here’s to powerful females of all ages.

 

“Once upon a time…” The phrase takes many of us back to our childhoods. It brings back memories of snuggling under the covers as a parent told us a bedtime story, or sitting cross-legged on the classroom floor as the teacher read out loud. We listened raptly, wondering where the story would take us next. Even as adults, we love stories and the journeys they take us on. It’s stories that grab our attention and keep it.

Consumers love stories, too. They enjoy learning about the history of a company and where it is going next. In college, I learned about the marketing concept “what’s in it for me?” and how important it was to answer that question through storytelling. That was close to 25 years ago, and the idea remains as strong now as it was then.

Our culture has been handed down for centuries through the oral tradition of storytelling. It’s in our nature to tell stories. People love to relate an anecdote when friends ask them about a purchase they’ve made. So, if you share a story about your own product with your customers, you’ll reap the benefits of having it passed on to others. This process is how a good story can grow and develop a life of its own.

Creating a story about your brand is a great way to let your customers know who you are and what you stand for. It’s through this narrative that you gain their interest and, more importantly, their trust. It doesn’t need to be some huge tome, telling them every little thing about your brand. It just needs to be enough to give them a taste, make them want more and, most importantly, help them remember you and your product.

In addition to my career in advertising and marketing, I’ve spent the last 15 years making and selling my own artwork. My customers love to hear the story behind each of my pieces. Even if they don’t buy anything, I tell them the story about my studio name. I can’t tell you how many people come back and say, “I remember you and that interesting story of how your studio got to be called ‘Kerensamere.’”

In this digital age, one might think that storytelling is dead, but that is simply not the case. If anything, storytelling is prevalent in our society now more than ever. Online videos are a great example of storytelling. It’s amazing how one well-crafted video can tell so much in such a brief time. Make it a good one, and it goes viral. Next thing you know, everyone is telling your story for you.

Not everyone is a good storyteller. Back in the Middle Ages, communities relied on bards to come to town and recite stories. Not just anyone could be a bard; it took a certain skill. It’s kind of like the difference between a person who’s good at telling jokes, and one who isn’t. If it’s not told right, the joke falls flat. You don’t want this to happen with your own brand story. That’s where hiring the right team can make all the difference in how well your story is told and retold.

Crafting and presenting your story is a skill that comes with practice and insight. You need to understand your own brand as well as your audience. What is it that you want people to know? How do you get them to care about your story? This is where hiring a team like Varsity comes into play. We pride ourselves in our ability to create brand narratives that tell your story to the people you want to hear it and get them to repeat it for you.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

“What’s in a name?” This line from Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” has sparked a debate that has lasted for centuries. How important is a name—whether you’re a person, a business or a Continuing Care Retirement Community?

According to a Forbes article, four signs of a great business name are that you can pronounce it, it’s not too long, it’s straightforward, and it’s catchy. “Continuing Care Retirement Community” falls short on at least two of those fronts.

That’s one reason for “CCRC NameStorm.” In this national study, a task force is researching perceptions of the label “Continuing Care Retirement Community” and investigating alternative wording that would describe our communities more accurately—and appealingly. Varsity is on the NameStorm task force, along with LeadingAge, Mather Lifeways, GlynnDevins, SB&A, Brooks Adams Research, and Love & Co.

In the NameStorm study, quantitative and qualitative research is being conducted across the country with CCRC residents, prospects and staff as well as the community at-large.

If you plan on going to LeadingAge PEAK in Washington, D.C., March 16-18, 2015, we encourage you to attend a special session about CCRC NameStorm: “What’s in a Name: a Look at the CCRC Label,” which will provide insights on the current progress of this study.

The term “Continuing Care Retirement Community” was coined quite a few years ago when this type of organization was just taking shape. Now the senior living industry is seeing the next generation of retirees react negatively to an idea of a “care” facility.

I’m sure you have experienced that negative reaction, just as we at Varsity have. Part of the issue is that the CCRC label is focused on only one piece of the story—the care piece. It’s easy for the active Boomer retiree to say, “this isn’t for me.”

As part of CCRC NameStorm, we have conducted focus groups with prospective and current resident groups at Homestead Village, a community in the heart of Lancaster County in central PA. We’re thankful to our very good clients in one of the country’s most densely populated CCRC markets for opening their doors and sharing their honest opinions. So far, we’ve found that people are excited about the possibility of a name change, but it’s a change that needs to be carefully considered. (Remember Radio Shack becoming “The Shack”?)

This will be an ongoing discussion, and it will certainly be an interesting one. We hope you can make it for the session at LeadingAge. If not, check back on the Varsity blog. We’ll be continuing to post the progress of the NameStorm study.

In senior living, branding can be particularly challenging because many of the amenities and offerings, can, on the surface, run the risk of sounding a bit similar. The community that hasn’t identified the most unique aspects of its culture may miss out on an opportunity to truly tell its story.

That’s why it’s important to find unique qualities that the community can hang its hat on: What is it about the residents and the staff that can be used to identify a brand that stands out in the marketplace?

To differentiate among communities, we need to look beneath the surface. How do the residents live? How do they interact with staff? What led them to choose this place over their other options? What happens organically within the community that gives it life? It could be a special group that maintains the trails or goes out into the community to volunteer. It could be the difference between a library and an active book group led by residents.

Delving into the details is critical because branding is not about assigning a personality to your client, it is about discovering the one that already exists, then helping the client to own it, live it and encourage others to become a part of it. It’s not just about a logo or a tagline. It’s a promise that a community that can make to its prospective residents that no other competitor can deliver on.

For me, as a designer by background and a creative director by trade, design and advertising are definitely part of the expression. They are the face of the brand seen in the website, the outdoor board along the highway and the sign out front. This face helps define the brand’s personality and its values. It expresses the brand in a way that is meaningful and a source of pride within the community.

But the advertising and design are only meaningful if they come from a place of truth. It’s important to dig deep into a community’s stories, identify genuine benefits that everyone can recognize as authentic, and then work consciously to expand on them to set the community apart.

The reward of finding that niche and having management, staff and residents embrace it is watching energy and excitement permeate the community as its brand comes to life.