ReBrand ReView: Private Home Care

Mario Tucker, Managing Director, and Seychelle Malolos, Executive Assistant at Private Home Care sat down to chat about the company’s latest rebrand. Stick around for a teardown and peek behind the curtain to see how this brand refresh went from concept to go-live. 

About the company: Private Home Care is a regionally-based, leading provider of non-medical in-home care services in the St. Louis, Kansas City, Chicago, and Southern Illinois communities. Visit their website here: https://privatehomecare.com/ 

Before the rebrand: Private Home Care History

This wasn’t Private Home Care’s first rodeo with rebranding, since the company’s inception in 2014. “We initially did a rebrand during COVID. We wanted to stay with the tree logo at that time,” Tucker shared. “Our original brand logo was a black tree. We used that for about five years, and the tree is really the only part of the brand that still exists today.” 

“When I was trying to come up with our original brand, we met with a bunch of marketing firms at the beginning, and people arrived at houses and the like. Other healthcare places have trees because of the tree of life, but that wasn't really the inspiration behind what we were going after,” Tucker shared. 

“I just wanted something that people could remember that would really stand out. Our original tree, which was black, was definitely very memorable because no one had a tree as their logo for home care. It didn't look like anything related to home care. And then that was the reason why I thought we could just try it.”

“The reason why we picked a tree was because trees mean nature. At the end of the day, like, what we do is very natural. We work with people who are in the final chapter of their life,” Tucker shared. “As business owners, we have to think about, anytime that you take something, you're taking something away from someone else. With our team, for example, when they work with us, that means that they can't work somewhere else. When we have clients, that means that someone else doesn't.”

“We have to really be stewards of that sacred understanding, and also understand that at the end of the day, we are all destined for the same fate. No matter how much we grow, no matter how much we accumulate, it's all pretty finite. We wanted something in the logo that was natural, and that's why a tree made sense.”

How the brand transformed: visual identity 

When you look across multiple brand palettes and visual identities in the home care space, they often blend into a few core themes. Red, blue, and purple tend to emerge as common primary brand colors, while hearts, hands, and houses tend to be common logo shapes. 

A simple Google search for home care logos will put out something similar to the below, not to mention the common color schemes. 

An example of a Google search for home care logos.

Private Home Care wanted to do something different, that was more personal to them. Here is their brand’s logo, from the brand’s beginning until now.

“We found a really good marketing and brand strategy partner here in St. Louis, Werremeyer Creative. They created a direction with collages, and we thought that was a really interesting concept. It could be really applicable to everyone, because our lives are just a collection of memories, and that's what the collages represent,” Tucker added. “Once got to that collage concept, we felt that it was the most natural next step to take with our brand’s direction. It was such a different take.” 

A screenshot showing the various creative collage elements that formed the brand’s new visual identity.

“In the beginning, we started by looking at our competitors, but ironically, we arrived at something that looked pretty similar to our old website.” 

They did, however, keep many of the elements the same to maintain continuity.

“When we most recently rebranded, we wanted to keep the tree logo mark for continuity. We briefly discussed adopting something other than the tree, but it was very short-lived,” Tucker shared. “If you look closely at our logo, there's a house in the middle of it (toward the center of the tree). Most people don't notice that at first glance, but we wanted to keep those elements. The new brand organically grew from there. We wanted something that we could build on.”

“On the other hand, we wanted to make the brand feel a bit more comfortable, using more subdued, and not so sharp colors. That was really the initial reasoning behind the need to rebrand,” Tucker shared. 

A screenshot showing Private Home Care’s new color palette.

RELATED READING: ReBrand ReView: Villi

How the brand transformed: verbal identity

“In terms of competitors, we looked at TheKey, and other local competitors here in St. Louis. The process evolved from there and deviated pretty significantly from the rest of the agencies in the home care space,” Tucker shared. 

“We also put a lot of work into developing our brand voice. Our new narrative focuses on: ‘Your story. Your home. Our care.’ With this rebrand, it doesn't just look different, but it feels different as well. We’ve adopted a more confident, refined, and emotionally intelligent brand voice and tone,” Maloles shared. “We also wanted to emphasize that, we are a growing company—but we are not losing that personal touch in the services that we provide for our clients,” she added. 

Looking at the company’s previous and current website side by side, you’ll see a very different tone in the way they talk to consumers. 

The new brand feels much more relatable and approachable. And the mission statement fits in organically with what a prospective client or family member would want to see, when evaluating different care options. 

Advocate for what you want, while making sure your team is on the same page.

Not all meetings should be meetings, perhaps many should be emails. When it comes to a rebrand, though, sometimes hashing things out white board style is just what you need. 

“The team here is very particular, especially with what needed to be on the website. They were likely more involved than most teams. Everyone had a lot of opinions,” Tucker added. “There were a lot of fact-finding meetings as well. I think because of the fact that everyone (the decision makers) were all kept in the same room, led to a smoother process. It may have been a bit overwhelming for the people that were working for us, but I think in the long run, it really helped because we were able to align after each meeting.” 

Good meetings don’t happen by accident. There are four key things you need in order to make meetings successful: 

1. Purpose
2. People
3. Process
4. Outcomes/Deliverables

“Although there were many opinions and disagreements, that was limited to that time frame. Once a meeting was over, we're all on the same page, so it's fine. The mistake that we made in the past with our previous rebrand was that people were just chiming in from everywhere, with not a lot of structure or rationale to defend certain points,” Tucker added. 

Don’t let perfection get in the way of getting something done. 

The Private Home Care team knows a thing or two because they’ve seen a thing or two. If you’re considering rebranding, take a page out of their lessons learned over the years. 

“You have to just be careful and not go too crazy. I like our brand, don’t get me wrong, but I'm always thinking to myself, how can it be better? What else can we do?” 

“Sometimes you have to stop yourself because you don't need to get to 100%, even if you love it. That doesn't necessarily mean that that is going to resonate with people (or that that's even necessary). You should aim for 70-75%. I think that's a really good benchmark. Your definition of 100% might not be the same as everyone else’s.”

More specifically to home care, “I would avoid hearts, hands, and any other limbs on the body for that matter, and would avoid houses too,” Tucker added. 

Yeah, I don’t know if this would be the next home care company to blow up, any thoughts on Foot Steps Home Care? 

Hopefully, this serves as some form of inspiration for your next rebrand.

To learn more about Private Home Care, check out their website: https://privatehomecare.com/ 

Interested in seeing how a marketing partner can help you bring your healthcare company’s rebrand or brand vision to life? Get in touch with Jenn today.