An Industry Outsider Takes a Fresh Approach to Updating a Venerable Health System’s Brand Identity

View from the C-Suite: Heather Geisler, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Communications and Experience Officer, Henry Ford Health

A strong brand acts as a unifying force to express the shared values of an organization.

// By Jane Weber Brubaker //

When Heather Geisler joined Henry Ford Health two years ago as executive vice president and chief marketing communications and experience officer, she went from hurricane season in one industry — hospitality — to hurricane season in another — health care. But there comes a time in a career when you have to — or choose to — listen to your heart.

Heather Geisler, executive vice president and chief marketing communications and experience officer, Henry Ford Health

After parting ways with Hyatt Hotels Corporation at the peak of the pandemic, she explains, “It was an opportunity for me to really think about what matters to me. And what I came back to time and time again was, I want to work for organizations [that] truly do make a difference in the lives of those that they serve.”

The move to health care wasn’t as much of an about-face as it seems. It aligns closely with her stated passion: leveraging brands, key issues, and values-based campaigns to rebuild and activate communities around social issues.

Geisler started out in politics, working for a member of Congress. “I learned a lot about what it means to build constituencies and share messages and build community around key issues,” she says.

From there, she went on to work for ad agencies in Washington, D.C. and New York. “A lot of the work that I did was around social issues and building social movements,” she shares. Among these initiatives were the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, No Kid Hungry, Pfizer’s Get Old campaign, and Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign.

Her next move was to the client side. She held senior executive positions with MSNBC, where she ran brand marketing, and Hyatt Hotels Corporation, departing as senior vice president of global brands.

Geisler brought quite an arsenal of experience to the then 105-year-old health care organization, which, at the time she joined in August 2020, was still called Henry Ford Health System.

Read on to learn how a brand expert was able to lead a diverse team in co-creating and articulating a powerful brand promise built on a legacy of excellence and innovation — and bringing it to life.

Learning the Language of Brand

For someone who has lived and breathed brand marketing, health care can feel like a different universe. “In a lot of other industries, everything’s about brand. Everybody knows what the brand is and why it matters,” says Geisler. “Brand in health care is not necessarily where a conversation starts when people talk about investing in a [health care] organization.”

But she points out that as people have more choice in where they get care, brand and reputation matter more, and clarity about the brand is important.

“Part of the opportunity I had coming from outside health care is to be able to use examples, both within health care and outside of health care, to educate people on why brand matters,” Geisler says. The emotional connection people have with brands like Apple and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, for example, goes beyond the products and services these organizations offer.

In conversations with stakeholders, Geisler sought to help them understand, “How does being clear about who you are and what you stand for in a brand help advance the strategic objectives of the organization?”

The Brand Promise

The next step was to move from purpose, mission, and vision statements to defining the brand promise. “The brand promise for us is really, on our best day when we show up, what do we promise? What is the expectation we want to create in those we serve? What do we want them to feel? What do we want them to know? What do we want them to think about us? And how are we making sure we’re consistent?” says Geisler.

The team working on the strategy included a diverse group of internal stakeholders — clinical leaders, frontline leaders, HAP (Health Alliance Plan, the health system’s insurance plan) — as well as three agency partners. “All of our agency partners were engaged all the way through the process,” she says. “It wasn’t a handoff. It wasn’t choppy. We were all building this together from the very beginning.

“Where we landed with our brand promise was, ‘Your relentless advocate in making the impossible possible,’” she says. “When you need heroism at scale, you turn to Henry Ford.”

This resonates for an organization that partnered with the federal government in setting up mass vaccination sites and scaling other critical public health programs, and that leans in to address health disparities and social injustice. “It is these incredible scientific breakthroughs that have happened at Henry Ford for 100 years, but it is also the ways we change the lives of the communities we serve,” says Geisler.

“It’s not a tagline,” Geisler stresses. “We had to explain, you’re never, ever going to see that on an advertisement. It’s what we always strive to do.”

Bringing the Brand Promise to Life

The brand promise was the foundation for everything that followed, including the new identity, Henry Ford Health — emphasizing health — and updated logo. “The logo becomes an external expression of that promise, and so making sure the organization was aligned around the promise was a really important first step,” Geisler explains.

According to a press release in March, “The refreshed Henry Ford Health name and new logo clearly transitions the identity from one steeped in the visual history of founder Henry Ford, to a brand expression focused on humanity, backed by a powerful heritage of innovation and drive. The organization’s “new signature” is a tribute to its century-plus legacy, while infusing a bright and bold new look.”

Geisler explains, “The third phase of the work was really thinking about how does this come to life in a meaningful way within our organization and outside our organization. We had an opportunity as we were launching this new brand, to redefine that brand, to redefine that legacy of what it means to be Henry Ford through the stories of the patients and the team members who do the work every day.”

The resulting campaign, “I am Henry,” features real people — patients and team members sharing their stories. “It’s about the values that make Henry Ford Health what it is.”

The campaign’s 60-second launch spot features these people and their stories, ending with, “When you’ve found your inner-believer, complex problem-solver, and all-around conqueror, you’ve found your Henry.”

Watch the spot here.

Change Is Hard

Leading a complex organization through a major change like this can teach lessons in humility. Reflecting on the journey thus far, Geisler says, “There were definitely some points along the road when we got feedback and we realized, we hadn’t thought about that, or we should have talked to this person sooner, or maybe we need to rewind and rework and come back with some other options.”

But overall, she says, “I’m incredibly proud of the inclusive manner in which we built this. I don’t feel like it’s a marketing thing. I feel very strongly that it is reflective of our organization.”

And some people’s opinions carry more weight. Dr. Salim Saddiqui is a radiation oncologist at Henry Ford Health. “His contributions in helping us develop that brand promise is one of the things he’s most proud of,” says Geisler. “And so, when you have an oncologist who literally saves people’s lives saying I’m so proud to be a part of helping us find this vision for who we want to be, that was really meaningful for us. I have full confidence that it’ll continue to deliver value for our organization and for those we serve.”

Jane Weber Brubaker is executive editor of Plain-English Health Care, a division of Plain-English Media. She directs editorial content for eHealthcare Strategy & Trends and Strategic Health Care Marketing, and is past chair of the eHealthcare Leadership Awards. Email her at jane@plainenglishmedia.com.