Branding

Have you ever wondered what it was about those two golden arches that made you automatically scream "McDonald's!" as a kid? Or why a simple check mark makes us think "Nike...Just do it!" How did a simple red addition symbol become associated with the American Red Cross? This is the great marketing miracle. Branding and creating a slogan that sticks is the goal of successful marketing firms. This is also what we are doing in health communication. Earlier today I was thinking about ways to effectively create a brand and slogan that would help our group come up with an effective health marketing campaign focused on increasing healthy eating habits and utilizing healthy substitutions. Dr. Elder gave really great advice. Simplicity is key. Something short and sweet that gets the point across. But who knew simplicity could be such a creatively complex process? How does one encompass such a big message without creating tunnel vision, or creating unnecessary restrictions to the message?

When we discussed the importance of simplicity I also thought it was, in some ways, contradictory to what we learn in this program. We are taught there are multiple levels that can affect a person's behavior. It's not just intrapersonal and interpersonal, its their environment and the policy and an effective intervention targets all these levels. Then how can we promote this, but then say that we should keep it extremely simple and not do too much at once. How does one balance this concept of working on multiple levels and multiple factors but create a brand or media campaign that is nothing more than basic? I guess that is the balancing act that an experienced health communicator can do efficiently. Let's see how we do...*fingers crossed*