It’s time for businesses to lead. To stand for something that matters to the world and to their workforce.

A new mindset is taking shape – one where healthcare companies move beyond a mission statement to proactively identify and define a bold brand mission that will help them deepen employee commitment, contribute to society and support their business objectives.

Why Brand Mission Matters

As a brand marketing strategist for almost two decades, I’ve witnessed many healthcare companies gloss over their corporate brands while investing heavily in their product brands, placing emphasis on what they are selling versus why they exist as the sole strategy to build reputation and gain market share. Few healthcare brands analyze how their fragmented efforts and communications can be amplified through a purpose-driven philosophy at the highest level – a philosophy that defines their corporate brand and dramatically changes how their organization is seen in the marketplace.

Many consumer brands – think Tesla, Patagonia and CVS – understand the payoff of this approach and live their brand mission boldly. They’ve taken a stand on issues that impact their business globally and locally and their corporate brands have become synonymous with those efforts. In this regard, healthcare companies are often lagging behind.

The untapped opportunity to create the next generation of healthcare brands is the catalyst for what I am so proud to be launching today: Waterhouse Brands a boutique consultancy that builds high impact brands for mission-driven healthcare companies.

Why Now?

We live in an era where employees come to work and actively question their organization’s leaders. They desire – and in some cases demand – that their personal beliefs align with their employer’s core values. They challenge policies and procedures that run counter to their ideals and feel allegiance to companies that care about something beyond profits. They see Corporate Social Responsibility not as an empty term to be thrown around in leadership meetings and delegated to one person within the organization, but as a lifeblood ethos affecting both reputation and the bottom line in equal measure.

Put simply, today’s discerning employees want to be inspired by something more.

Our challenge and opportunity as healthcare marketing and communications professionals is to create a shift in thinking and instill a mindset where corporate brand is seen as more than a vehicle to support products and commercial strategy. Where it is embraced as a mission-critical tool with the potential to unify a company’s involvement efforts, create shared purpose, inspire action and ultimately make a meaningful impact for all of a company’s stakeholders.

How We Galvanize Impact

We listen and seek to understand the various points of view and competitive factors that inform and shape a company’s brand. We take a 360-degree approach to aligning vision, culture, experience and involvement in a way that builds company reputation and enterprise value. This inside-out, reflective approach gives executives the data and perspective necessary to see their business and brand through the lens of employees and stakeholders, and helps us identify which levers to pull from a positioning, culture, storytelling, design and digital standpoint. Our goal: to reflect the company’s internal experience and accelerate its unique journey towards success.

This approach requires a collaborative energy and I am thrilled to announce that Waterhouse Brands is fueled by individuals who are compelled to make an impact collectively. Experience comes in many forms and our multi-generational team combines deep healthcare experience with broad skillsets, spanning disciplines that allow us to effectively define, launch, activate and amplify a company’s brand.

Ultimately, we want Waterhouse Brands to be synonymous with helping healthcare companies be more, do more and deliver more.

It’s a new model for a new era: the next frontier of healthcare branding.

So let’s get started.