SWITCH BC

Challenge

In late 2021, the British Columbia Government, through representatives from the Ministry of Health, contacted Straydog Branding to help them with their strategic branding requirements. The group was established to provide the organizational basis for an innovative and collaborative initiative to influence, invest in and support province-wide initiatives to improve health care worker health and safety in British Columbia. The Society is chaired by Roberta Ellis, appointed by the Ministry of Health and the organizational model, unique in Canada, brings together representatives of employers, unions and physicians who are joined by the Ministry of Health and Worksafe BC as directors of the Society.

The Vision of the Society is to support one system of safety and well-being for health care teams across BC. The Society started out as:

BC Health Care Occupational Health and Safety Society.

The name was a handful and didn’t lend itself well to being memorable, and easy to say or remember. It was clear at the outset, that we needed to develop a new name for the Society. Naming is always a challenge, but in this case, especially challenging as our team at Straydog would have develop name options that would support many ideas and brand elements, including: the brand values, vision, purpose. Plus, we were going to have to present to and get buy-in from a wide variety of stakeholders in the process, including the head of BC Nurses Union, Worksafe BC, Health Employers Association of BC, Doctors of BC, representatives from the Health Authorities in BC as well as the BCGEU. Certainly this was going to be no easy task, without risks of blowing the budget and ending up at a stalemate.

Result

Success! Our efforts to successfully develop a new name for the Society was rooted in the Straydog team’s ability to look at the big picture, focus on what’s important, and work through the challenges and feedback with patience and collaboration. We knew the tasks was formidable, but that’s when our team really shines.

We looked at many new name options, some a little more creative & empty vessel type names, that could work very well in brand play, brand name recognition as well being able to meet the name criteria outlined in our discovery sessions, however, we knew these types of names would be harder for us to gain wide consensus from the client….considering the client and the stakeholders, taking a conservative approach was always going the driver.

However, we knew that an approach of being too conservative was just too easy, yet a conservative approach would not help the society achieve it’s lofty goals. We needed the society members and all of it’s stakeholders to be excited about their mandate and having a great name and outstanding brand identity would make their efforts just a little bit easier.

SWITCH BC turned about the be the best name option. It’s acronym is: Safety, Well-being, Innovation, Training & Collaboration in Healthcare, will perfectly supporting the society’s focus. And the word SWITCH conjures up a move in a new direction, doing something different, switching the way we think, being Switched on. The name also invites curiosity, and refers to action and movement…critically, what the society must be able to encourage and foster from all of the stakeholders in order to bring real improvement, collaboration and caring to the BC Health care network.

The Brand Identity