With increasing frequency, I hear from health practitioners who believe that creating a logo is the primary consideration in creating a brand or branding message. In fact, a logo is not a brand, but it represents a brand.

In today’s environment many clinics and health practitioners are rethinking their marketing and branding. All are looking for a fresh branding message, it has become common place for healthcare clinics and even individual practitioners to brand their practices with logos and slogans displayed on everything from their clinic signage to things like bus signage & for those in regional areas even television ads. The goal is to produce a compelling tagline and image that symbolises the services or philosophy of their healthcare clinic.

Does branding really impact a patient’s selection of a health care provider? Although the answer is “yes,” the challenge for healthcare marketing professionals quickly becomes: Since effective branding is targeted at the ‘’buyer’’ what we as practitioners want to promote may not be what needs to be sold from a marketing/business point of view.

Practitioners are likely to think of value in terms of clinical quality (skill level, training, and peer reputation) in affiliation with a health system that provides state of the art equipment and technology. But the public (the buyer) often values service (access, amenities, ease of scheduling).

Creating a truly effective logo probably will not be an all-encompassing branding message at the level of these lesser and individual components. While they are important elements and design considerations a logo-the device itself-is not the brand.

I like to think of branding as the overarching value or benefits that differentiate who you are and what you do. The logo is a symbolic reminder of those important values.

Here’s the challenging part

Typically, the final creative product will consist of a graphic or visual element, a business name and a positioning tagline. But the development of a logo, from the blank page to the final form, requires a design that’s simple, visually appealing, and which inspires a lasting and positive mental impression.

A creative solution finds the right formula to bring together these sometimes-competing criteria in a way that works together. The creative process is challenging, and not easily done without professional help.

In our experience, the “solution” (which will be unique to the circumstances) will embrace each of the following essentials to be a true contender:

And then there’s the really challenging part

Your brand-the essential definition of who or what you are in the minds of others-can be distilled and expressed in logo form. And when you get it right, a logo is a versatile and highly effective marketing tool that represents your branding message for your practice or clinic.

But as an expression of your brand, the core challenge is to clearly define the total experience that a patient/customer has with your product, service or practice. Does it come from the practitioner’s perspective of clinical quality or the patient’s value system of access and service?

The really challenging part of the logo development process is in finding the answer…one that will be different from others and unique to each situation, and often one where the values of the practitioner and the values of the patient intersect.

And we would agree. The logo is not the brand. In this instance, it symbolises the compassion, trust and caring that are the heart of the brand.