Today’s Dental Network
Statewide dental service organization launches a fresh new brand.
Today’s Dental Network (TDN) is a dental service organization (DSO) in West Central Florida. Formed and led by dentists, TDN offers back office support for dental practices through providing financial services, HR, marketing, IT, continuing education, and training opportunities.
In 2022, TDN came to Big Sea looking for a partner to help them create a new, modern brand and design a website to help attract and convert new practices to join their organization.
The Objectives
A new, show-stopping brand
- Develop the essential brand messaging for TDN, including a tagline.
- Create a brand usage manual and style guide, including voice and tone and messaging guidelines and an official font and color palette.
- Design a logo for the organization.
The Problem
Evolving from a basic brand
When Big Sea began its collaboration with TDN, the dental network was less than a year old. While the organization had created some basic guidelines for its print and web materials before working with us, TDN was new enough that this was the first time the organization had ever gone through a branding exercise. That meant there were lots of opportunities for directions to take the brand, but it also meant the process had the potential to be extremely open-ended. Establishing efficient communication, steadily advancing the decision-making process, and making decisive choices were all essential to keep the project on deadline.
The Strategy
A living, breathing brand identity
We began our collaboration with TDN by conducting our Deep Dive Survey with their board members and senior management team. The Deep Dive helps us get to know the organization through a series of open-ended questions, such as:
- How does the company work?
- What does it stand for?
- What value does it offer to customers?
- What differentiates it in the marketplace?
- How does the company want to be perceived?
Collaborative wayfinding
After we performed our initial survey, we met with the stakeholders at TDN to gather feedback about their target customers, their preferred brand aesthetics, and the directions they wanted to go with their advertising. Big Sea provided careful strategic guidance, bringing together more than 15 different executives to facilitate a discussion about the company’s core messaging for its staff and its audience for the first time.
Board members reacted to other brands’ logos and to sample advertisements from rival DSOs and other companies in order to establish their preferences. We asked members of the organization to describe their ideal customers in detail — both the ones they currently work with and the ones they were most trying to reach through the rebranding.
The Branding
Designing a story
Competitive Analysis
We analyzed the current state of the marketplace for comparable dental service organizations both in Florida and nationally. This research helps set a baseline for how other organizations manage their brands, and it provides guidance for best practices to emulate and pitfalls to avoid.
The Branding Process
In response to all the information we’ve gathered from the board and from across the marketplace, Big Sea initiated several rounds of creative production, designing a logo first in black and white then in color, establishing a color palette for all future branding, and setting clear messaging guidelines that will be used to structure TDN’s website and forthcoming promotional materials.
Ongoing engagement across locations
Branding & Collateral
Big Sea developed cohesive brand guidelines for various practices that wanted to share a visual identity as well as created formal guidelines for those who had established branding. We also designed business cards and stationary to modernize practice’s presence.
Digital Marketing
We increased patient acquisition through targeted paid search campaigns on Google and Bing, driving traffic to custom landing pages designed to convert visitors into patients.
Direct Mail & Referral Marketing
As part of TDN’s direct mail marketing efforts, Big Sea designed promotional postcards as well as created branded rack cards, referral cards, and referral pads to encourage patient referrals and grow their patient base.
“The rebranding process with Big Sea was so thoughtful and seamless, especially our strategic planning sessions. They were able to successfully wrangle and engage all stakeholders in meaningful conversation about our brand and get us all to agree on a direction and final brand package. It truly captured who we are as a company. From our front-line employees to our partner doctors and investors, everyone was proud of the results.”
Shanna BonannoCMO, Today’s Dental Network
The Results
A robust, modern brand
Within the strict timeline we’d established at the outset of the project, Big Sea delivered:
- A new logo
- A tagline
- Statements of the brand’s credo, mission, vision, values, and key differentiators
- A complete style guide with voice and tone and messaging guidelines
- A brand color palette
The successful collaboration led to a relaunch of TDN’s website and additional work on a series of web development and content marketing projects including landing pages for specific services, promotional pamphlets for trade shows, and mailers to promote individual member dentists’ offices.
