HealthCraft Products Inc. is a proud Ottawa success story that had won an enviable market position by innovating, designing and manufacturing premium physical support products brilliantly engineered to help customers live safely and independently at home.
HealthCraft’s success, however, had started to cause a brand challenge, with multiple branded product lines for very different sets of buyers (institutions vs well-heeled consumers). Compounding the problem was that the corporate brand and the institutional product brand were the same.
We talked to leaders, staff, distributors and customers across the spectrum, including a survey of representative demographic groups in the United States to understand how the brands were viewed and how they appealed to different sets of buyers.
Out of the research came a critical insight: the company’s brand strength was rooted in a strong sense of purpose; to eliminate falls as a reason for injury and even death. It was that sense of purpose that drove both its innovation and its industrial design thinking. Moreover, that sense of purpose also created an expectation in the market that Healthcraft was the brand in the best position to make fall prevention an important public conversation through leadership, education and advocacy.
From those insights, a brand framework was developed that included its promise – “make every space, a safer place.” Supported by a clear brand story, recommendations for building leadership and a distinct positioning for each of the product lines were provide and Healthcraft’s house of brands now had the support it needed to achieve its growth goals.