We’re really proud to share our strategic rebrand work for Active Care Group, the UK’s leading provider of complex care and one of the fastest growing healthcare companies in the country.
The Group was formed in 2019, bringing together over 40 care providers to form a progressive healthcare business with a focus on complex care. In a sector ripe for radical change, where there is growing demand for complex care services yet no clear national leader – there was a clear opportunity for ACG, yet it faced many challenges.
This is an organisation that’s truly life changing. An organisation of action; of positivity; of impact and fundamentally of incredible people. But because of rapid growth, and a leadership focus on building services and internal structures, there was no brand strategy or story to bring this to life. This directly impacted on recruitment, culture, engagement and commercial success.
rbl was first approached to provide urgent support for a recruitment campaign to help fill a number of stubborn vacancies, but through our detailed Discover stage, where we consulted with many staff and partners, it soon became clear that a more fundamental review of the wider brand strategy, identity and marketing communications activity was necessary.
A proposition with purpose and emotion
Active Care isn’t just the name of the Group – it’s the central idea, the philosophy and the spirit that runs through everything they do. It’s the reason people come to work every day to care for others with so many complex needs.
We used this understanding to create a powerful and emotive brand proposition and story that emphasised how ACG’s unique and holistic approach delivers a better quality of care which leads to better quality of life for the adults, young people and children in their care.
A confident, simplified brand architecture
We challenged the Senior Leadership team to move away from using the internal structure and individual functions of the Group to explain the offer, focusing instead on what’s meaningful for their customers and how together, as a collective, they add value and represent something unique.
We simplified the brand architecture, adopting a masterbrand approach which stripped away unnecessary sub-brands to reveal a bolder, more confident, coherent Group structure.
In removing these layers and legacy brands, we were able to design an integrated, unified organisation that was easier to navigate and understand both externally and internally.
A human-centred identity
After finalising the brand strategy, we designed a visual identity system that reflected the progressive, innovative nature of the organisation. Crucially, this was also human, positive, warm and energetic, just like their incredible team of carers, nurses, therapists and support workers.
We transformed their tone of voice and messaging to be simpler, more personal, active, and optimistic; using the collective voices of their people to tell the story of this ambitious healthcare Group.
And to truly put their people at the heart of the brand, we visited residential and community locations across the country to capture powerful imagery and video content showing Active Care in action. This provided us with a rich and emotive tapestry of stories to use across communications and bring the brand to life.
Illustrations of scenes, patterns and textures are also an integral part of the visual language, providing further character, depth and flexibility – helping to tell some of the more complex, critical and emotional stories simply, and powerfully.
Transformational impact
We have guided ACG through every step of this transformation and helped them to realise the truly progressive care business they are. With a powerful story and expressive creative, we set out to redesign all of ACG’s internal and external communications and rethink the core experiences and interactions that mattered most in driving engagement from staff, clients and partners.
We created a custom-built website at activecaregroup.co.uk that transformed ACG’s online presence, communicating the full breadth of their offer and their national footprint for the first time. Critically this delivers a much smarter, intuitive user experience that means people can find a relevant service quickly.
Returning to our original recruitment objective, we developed an integrated digital and social campaign that used the real voices of current staff to inspire people to apply for a role in care with ACG. In doing so we brought real passion, emotion and authenticity to the campaign. Initial results have shown a 450% year on year increase* in high quality job applications for roles across the Group.
We couldn’t be prouder of this work and the relationship we’ve built with this amazing organisation.
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