Architecture | Brand Identity | Physical Activations
How do you turn an auxiliary service into a cornerstone sub-brand?
VCA Emergency Care
Challenge
Most clients meet their ER vet for the first time at a moment of critical need. Vets have a short amount of time to establish trust and due to a triage system that places the most critical cases before less critical circumstances, many pet owners are left sitting in waiting rooms - some for entire days - before they are seen by a vet.
Insight
We drew inspiration from human emergency services, such as local firefighters, EMTs, and FEMA, to design out-of-hospital activations and a comms strategy that informed and reassured. The out-of-hospital activations would allow community members to connect with their local ER vet away from the high-stress environment of critical care. The communication strategy would help clients self-select into either VCA's Urgent Care or Emergency Care services, alleviating the ER of less critical cases and helping pets be seen faster in the right clinic environment.
Results
Initial strategy readouts had internal stakeholders excited and emotional with the dominant emotion being that of relief. Staff felt acknowledged and seen for their hard, yet often overlooked work in the emergency care space. Ultimately, for consumers, this is a long-term brand perception shift and the true impact may not be fully apparent for several more years.