Senior Services of Seattle King County:
Project Enhance Branding

Challenge
In 2005, the Senior Wellness Project, an organization that administered two award-winning, community-based health programs for older adults, partnered with Strategic Communications & Planning to conduct a comprehensive branding initiative as part of a larger business planning process. The focus of this work was to re-brand the Senior Wellness Project as well as its two evidence-based health promotion programs—the Lifetime Fitness Program and the Health Enhancement Program.

Approach
As part of a larger business planning effort by the Senior Wellness Project, SCP began background research by conducting 15 one-on-one interviews with the Senior Wellness Project’s staff, advisors, researchers, and services providers. SCP also ran three focus groups with older adults and representatives of local senior centers, assisted living facilities, and continuing care retirement communities.

SCP’s research revealed that the Senior Wellness Project’s key attribute was its ability to inspire and connect with both the older adult members of its programs and the professionals responsible for running their programs. SCP also uncovered some disconnects within the Senior Wellness Project. For one, participants in (and even some site staff associated with) the Lifetime Fitness Program were not aware of the Health Enhancement Program and vice versa. To remedy the problem, SCP worked with the Senior Wellness Project to revamp the organization and to create new names for the programs and an associated logo, graphic identity, Web site, and information package.

Results/Impact
The logo, brand identity, and new names created with the help of SCP—Project Enhance (in place of the Senior Wellness Project for the overall program), Enhance Fitness (in place of Lifetime Fitness), and Enhance Wellness (in place of the Health Enhancement Program)—have provided a solid foundation for the Project’s national dissemination efforts. Following our work, Project Enhance added 25 new sites in six states in the first five months of 2006 alone. Today, Enhance’s programs can be found in more than 200 sites and 21 states.