Northside Hospital / Gwinnett Medical System

Situation

With a merger completed between Northside Hospital and Gwinnett Medical System, Northside was looking to gain a deeper understanding of how its brand and that of the Gwinnett system were perceived by the geographies they served. These insights were necessary as Northside looked to the future in terms when the two systems would combine operations and critical decisions would need to be made around marketing elements like naming, branding, etc.

Analytics

Alexander Babbage conducted a consumer study among residents in both systems’ service areas, which provided quantification of critical elements for both systems for brand awareness, brand strengths, strength of association with specific service lines, and ultimately, how the brand identities for the two systems differed based on geography. The study provided a deep dive into consumer perceptions of and attitudes toward each system, identifying common strengths to be leveraged or highlighting when one system was stronger than the other.

Result

As a result of this analysis, Northside was able to determine that its brand had a strong advantage over Gwinnett on elements like awareness and familiarity, but also was able to understand that geography played no role in brand perceptions – Northside had the same strengths regardless of whether it was in its own service areas or those of Gwinnett Medical System. Northside was able to confidently move forward with its branding and naming strategies, supported by data from the newly expanded geography it serves.