Brand, Culture and Systems: It is a Beautiful Thing When All Align

In this past year, we set out to match our culture with our brand. We had an exciting, dynamic, thought leading and fun culture. Could we build an exciting, dynamic, thought leading and fun brand? This challenge might be easy in another category. But in senior care? Could we build excitement in this boring, old and unremarkable industry?

I should add that we are building much more then just an exciting brand. We are on a mission to build a enduringly great, purpose driven brand.

And although it has taken a lot of time and patience, we are starting to see one of the biggest benefits of doing this. Our philosophy, our way of doing things, our spirit and our personality has become woven into the fabric of our DNA throughout our company.

What do I mean? Let me talk about our brand for a second.

How many of us look forward to getting old? I mean, think about it: we will lose our eyesight, our hearing, our ability to run; our bones will get old, our memory will slow down. We will have our driver’s license taken away. Our daily highlight will be getting out of the house to do some grocery shopping (of which we will need assistance because we cant carry anything over 10 pounds). We will lose our friends, and family. We will get sick; many of us will have multiple chronic diseases when we get older.

The truth is, getting older, in our society, isn’t something we celebrate. It is often lonely; at times a bit depressing. Unfortunately, It has become something many of us fear.

And advertising in our space treats aging in this exact same way. If you look at the average senior care or care giving ad, it represents the same boring, old, un inspirational theme as that of aging itself. You will find the ubiquitous image of a smiling senior and a smiling caregiver. Sometimes you will find the image of a smiling daughter added to the mix. Sometimes it is even fear based (It is shocking to see that brands still do this)

At Nurse Next Door, we see things a bit differently. We see a world where we unleash the inner spirit in seniors everywhere. We see a world where no matter how old we are and what is happening in our bodies, we can still find happiness. And we believe in making the act of caregiving a more enjoyable and social , even aspirational, experience.

And so we reflect this in our marketing. Our pictures (of our own clients and caregivers, of course) are lively, dynamic, fun and spirited (my personal favorite is of our gardening lady). Our content is written in the same way.

But it goes so much deeper then our marketing. It, of course, is reflected in our culture. Our culture, also happens to be lively, dynamic, fun and spirited. And our culture is galvanized around our one, single cause: finding the celebration in life no matter how old we get. Which is, of course, how we live our purpose of Making Lives Better.

And it is reflected in our systems of caring. To pursue this cause, we have adapted all of our caring systems, all of our training systems. For it is one thing to present a purpose driven brand through your marketing and advertising, it is another thing to actually live it day in, day out in your service. And this is ultimately why you see so few purpose driven brands in the world.

Our brand. Our culture. And our systems. All designed around our purpose of Making Lives Better. And all reflecting what we stand for (our core values). Pretty cool to watch it all come together. And even better to see how much it differentiates us in a sea of ordinariness.