ReBrand ReView: Tanner Health

Kelly Meigs, VP - Marketing Strategy and Planning at Tanner Health, sat down to chat about the company’s 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 brand: Tanner Health is a five-hospital non-profit health system providing convenient, personalized health care to communities across west Georgia and east Alabama. Tanner Health physicians and staff provide the latest technology and treatment options to advance the health of their patients. In addition to their regional hospitals and care centers, Tanner operates Tanner Medical Group, one of metro Atlanta’s largest multi-specialty physician groups. Visit their website here.

Before the rebrand

“I started at Tanner in 2002, and back then, we were Tanner Health System. It was a really good name during a time when we were trying to build cohesiveness with our system and trying to bring all these disparate hospitals together,” Meigs shared.

In 2024, as Tanner approached its 75th anniversary, “it was the perfect time to rebrand.” Tanner Health had undergone several changes, adding new groups and services over time. 

The main reason they rebranded is because “we are more than just a system. Nobody really wants to be in a “system,” and our focus is ‘how do we keep you healthy and happy before and when you need us?’”

One of the core moves of the rebrand was leaning in on the organization’s key differentiators. “Tanner is different from most health systems as we do a lot of community programs to help people learn how to eat better, manage chronic conditions, and keep from getting chronic conditions in the first place. We're really all about health, not so much about systems. We felt like it was a good time to drop ‘System’ from the brand name,” Meigs added.

This isn’t an isolated move either, many other hospitals have dropped system from their names in recent years, including: Henry Ford Health (‘22), Advent Health (‘19), Northwell Health (‘17), and Mass General Brigham (vis a vis Partners HealthCare System in 2019). Some are making similar moves, like Catholic Healthcare West becoming Dignity Health and Kettering Health Network becoming Kettering Health. These strategic moves aim to replace corporate, cold-sounding names with shorter ones that feel warm and inviting. Becker’s also did a piece explaining that health systems are removing “University” from their names.

The rebranding process

When deciding to rebrand, Meigs and the team went through a very thorough process to make sure that key stakeholders were aligned in the goals and the vision: “We function like a full-service marketing agency, so we do everything in-house. We had several ideation sessions around the logo,” Meigs shared.

Beyond that, there were a lot of elements and variables that went into deciding what was going to change as part of this most recent rebrand endeavor. “We made sure that whatever we chose, we understood the ramifications of the change, like all of the locations it would be in and all the possibilities of the logo we would print or need produced.” 

After going through the ideation sessions, the Tanner Health marketing team led a presentation about the rebrand to their CEO and C-suite. “We also worked with a lot of our vendors, because obviously we were talking about signage changes, internal changes like to forms that print out of the medical record, and most importantly, just understanding the scope of the project. Over time, we also accepted and welcomed that “everything doesn't have to happen all at one time,” Meigs added.

For the 75th anniversary, they prioritized rebranding their flagship Carrollton campus and used a phased approach for other locations. “Phase two was our behavioral health hospital campus because we were opening a new project there, and we needed directionals to be updated. Then, our East Alabama and Higgins facilities would be next. And our biggest construction project is happening in our Villa Rica campus.”

How the brand transformed

To understand the depth of the rebrand, Tanner Health has undergone a number of rebrands and refreshes in its storied history. Here is a brief history of the brand’s name and logo changes:

• 1949-1970s: Tanner Memorial Hospital
• 1970’s - 1990’s: Tanner Medical Center
• 1990s-2005: Tanner Health System (marked by gradient grey and hunter green graduated mobius logo)
• 2005-2024: Tanner Health System (marked by solid mobius with more feminine green tones)
• 2024: Tanner Health

The Tanner Health logo

Tanner Health’s logo since the early 2000’s has included a Möbius strip. The icon is formed by twisting and folding a rectangular sheet of paper, and connecting the ends together. Oshi Health and Mobius Medical, for example, also use a Möbius strip for their logos. 

The Möbius strip also has a lot of meaning behind it. It stands for infinity, continuity, unity, transformation, and interconnectedness. It’s the subject of a lot of mathematical and existential thought, covered here and here. 

One specific change in the logo was moving from a two-sided Möbius, to one with three sections, each symbolizing the brand’s past, present, and future, respectively. Every person who has walked through their walls has a place in the Tanner Health brand story. 

Their current logo. 

Their old logo. 

The brand colors

“When I first got here, we were using a really dark hunter green; it’s just such a masculine color. When we changed to the Tanner green that we're using now, it was very much about appealing to female consumers because they're making the healthcare decisions for their family.” 

“We wanted it to be a much friendlier and less corporate-looking color. That played a large role in deciding on our New Growth Green. At that time, we were also going through an intense amount of system growth. Many physician practices were joining Tanner, and we were building a new behavioral health hospital. We were just growing, growing, and growing,” Meigs added. 

It wasn’t just about appealing to women. It was also about appealing to and attracting the next generation of patients and future clinicians. “Making our visual identity feel friendlier, more about health, and more about what we were as an organization was important when we chose that new green. In part, we also wanted to reinforce that we want you to be healthy as long as possible. Now, with the move from Tanner Health System to Tanner Health, younger generations find themselves in tune with ‘how can I be in control of my health and my health destiny into the future,’” Meigs shared.

Color theory played a large role in helping the team choose the right colors while giving the brand some breathing room to add pops of color. “Green is a very calming and renewing color. It marks the transition from winter to spring. It's a color that denotes health. And then the blue is a very calming, very earthy color. We wanted to represent a place of refuge and growth. And we wanted it to be a place where we can improve your health together.”

“So, a lot of color theory went into the rebrand work. ‘What does this blue need to be?’ You didn't want it to go very corporate, and we worked really hard on finding the perfect shade of blue.”

Changing the narrative about healthcare

Tanner Health was looking to evolve their verbal identity as much as they wanted to evolve their visual identity. Their name was shortened and simplified, but they also evolved the way that they talk about care. 

The overall narrative was: “‘How can we help you with your health?” We’re not just here for when you need to go to the ED or you've had a heart attack, but how can we help you have better health?’ That was part of the reason behind the name change because nobody wants to be in the system. You don't want to be part of a cog in a system. We want to be your partner in your health. And we felt like that kind of language resonates with consumers in the way younger consumers would engage with health care. It resonates with everyone - don’t you want to feel that you’re leading your own health destiny?”

This wasn’t just marketing speak; the brand’s commitment to care is demonstrated by the comprehensive service offerings it brings to the community.  

Tanner’s continuity of care extends far beyond acute care, encompassing the entire lifespan. “It's a very rare thing to have a senior living community connected to a health system. We do a lot of programming for our Get Healthy, Live Well program there, which involves chronic disease management, nutrition counseling, and other things like that for the senior living community,” Meigs added. 

Tying it back to marketing, Tanner Health’s team has made a commitment to create Content That Cares, incorporating pictures of their team members, patients, and community in content and sharing the stories that happen within and outside of their walls. 

“Along with the rebrand, we want to tighten our connection to the community and show the people who work here. If you come in here, you'll see the same people you saw online, making it feel very personal. It’s all about focusing on what makes Tanner different. And that might mean showing a cardiac thoracic surgeon who could go anywhere in the world and yet he chose to come to Tanner. It could be this new physician who's starting their career here, sharing their first day on the team. It could be a patient testimonial. So we really want it to be that when you go on our social pages, you see faces of real people who are part of Tanner,” Meigs added. 

How Tanner Health rallied their community in the rebrand

With 75 years of experience, Tanner Health had to make a big splash on multiple channels to get in front of its community. 

“We kicked off the rebrand to employees two weeks before the 75th anniversary, and we made a point to send multiple employee communications upfront about why we were making the change. This included the story behind the Mobius strip representing our past, present and just tying it all together with celebrating a pretty big accomplishment to make it 75 years in business,” Meigs added. 

They also created a 30-day series on their social media throughout the entire month of October, walking followers through each of the decades. This wasn’t just filling up their content calendar, it was intentional to engage and reminisce alongside the people who worked in their facilities, those who received care in those halls, and the people who will, in time, come to their campuses. 

“We did a lot of videos about what Tanner means to me, and it was a great way to introduce the new brand. We did a new brand video and spent a lot of time talking about our past, our present, and our future. There are people in the video who have been here and seen Tanner when it was just one hospital. And then it was two hospitals, then three, etc. On the other hand, you have people who came here because they're excited for the future we're building. So, it was really cool to tie that past, present, and future back to what it really means to work at Tanner, but solidify the position and significance we hold to our community.” 

They also created a branded hashtag to celebrate the anniversary: #75YearsOfTanner Health.

They also honored their employees with this brand reel along with the new identity. 

Walk through memory lane with Tanner Health to see how far their brand has come in its storied 75-year history. 

To learn more about Tanner Health, check out their website: https://www.tanner.org/ 

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.