Relish rebrand in Marcom News

ODA brings joy to life with demen­tia rebrand­ing Active Minds as Relish

Brand­ing agency ODA has rebrand­ed Active Minds, as Rel­ish, the demen­tia well­be­ing brand. The rebrand chal­lenges the cur­rent demen­tia nar­ra­tive of loss and its nar­row focus on mem­o­ry with a new propo­si­tion: ​‘bring­ing joy to life with demen­tia’. The new plat­form will help the com­pa­ny realise it’s ambi­tion to become a world-lead­ing demen­tia well­be­ing brand.

There are approx­i­mate­ly 850,000 peo­ple in the UK liv­ing with demen­tia, and an esti­mat­ed 54 mil­lion peo­ple world­wide. Rel­ish designs activ­i­ty prod­ucts and games for peo­ple liv­ing with demen­tia and their carers.

“We found that while aware­ness of demen­tia was high, under­stand­ing of the demen­tia jour­ney and how to com­mu­ni­cate and con­nect with loved ones was low. The demen­tia care prod­uct mar­ket is grow­ing rapid­ly, but it’s frag­ment­ed and func­tion­al­ly dri­ven. There was an oppor­tu­ni­ty for Rel­ish to offer a holis­tic well­be­ing approach, and much need­ed guid­ance through­out the demen­tia jour­ney.” says Sarah West­wood, Cre­ative Strate­gist at ODA.

A fresh look at dementia 

The rebrand began with the search for a new name. From Active Minds, a func­tion­al name that focused sole­ly on the brain nar­ra­tive, the team chose Rel­ish, a name that speaks to well­be­ing and rel­ish­ing the moments of time togeth­er that bring connection.

“We set out to design a brand that any­one would enjoy, rather than a clin­i­cal tool for those liv­ing with demen­tia. We delib­er­ate­ly kept the brand iden­ti­ty sim­ple – a friend­ly approach­able logo­type, opti­mistic colours and hand-drawn, organ­ic shapes that rep­re­sent the pos­i­tive feel­ings that peo­ple liv­ing with demen­tia con­tin­ue to feel long after moments of con­nec­tion. The over­all effect is a brand that feels joy­ful and opti­mistic.” says ODA Cre­ative Direc­tor, Grant Willis.

Cel­e­brat­ing the individual 

“Demen­tia often ends up defin­ing the indi­vid­ual. We want­ed this brand to cel­e­brate indi­vid­u­als with dif­fer­ent inter­ests. The dis­ease also affects how a per­son uses lan­guage and com­mu­ni­cates, so we posi­tioned Rel­ish as a friend­ly ally, gen­tly guid­ing and edu­cat­ing through­out the demen­tia jour­ney, help­ing car­ers under­stand how to com­mu­ni­cate with loved ones liv­ing with demen­tia.” says West­wood.

A total well­be­ing system 

Dri­ving the new propo­si­tion is a new well­be­ing mod­el, built on lat­est demen­tia think­ing, that con­nects prod­ucts with out­comes. Each of the 8 levers dri­ves the cre­ative process inter­nal­ly to ensure that prod­ucts and activ­i­ty always have a pur­pose and well­be­ing out­come. Joy and func­tion are com­bined in the design of a sim­ple set of ben­e­fit icons, con­nect­ing it with car­ers and help­ing them nav­i­gate the ben­e­fits of every Rel­ish product.

ODA also designed a sim­ple staged demen­tia jour­ney for Rel­ish to help ensure that peo­ple select­ed the right prod­uct to lead to suc­cess­ful out­comes. Rein­forc­ing the brand’s exper­tise, it explains the stages and prod­uct design suitability.

Ben Atkin­son-Willes founder of Rel­ish says, ​“We are very proud of the work we’ve done with ODA. They took time to under­stand demen­tia and the chal­lenges, and cre­at­ed a refresh­ing brand nar­ra­tive built on real sub­stance. The rebrand has giv­en us the momen­tum to take the brand to the next lev­el as a lead­ing con­sumer brand”

Cor­mac Stan­ford, Rel­ish Mar­ket­ing Direc­tor on how the rebrand has helped con­nect with a new­er, wider audi­ence: ​“The biggest chal­lenge we faced was build­ing an engag­ing brand that could posi­tion us as a leader in demen­tia well­be­ing in the long term. Key to that was suc­cess­ful­ly rep­re­sent­ing the feel­ing of using our prod­ucts. To be an authen­tic part­ner to our audi­ence who are expe­ri­enc­ing chal­lenges, we need­ed to demon­strate our under­stand­ing and that we are there for them on their jour­ney. ODA brought emo­tion to our brand, cre­at­ing a plat­form that is visu­al­ly appeal­ing, but more than that has recog­nis­able heart and depth.”

Rel­ish is in a peri­od of high growth, with large uplift in its eCom­merce and imme­di­ate inter­est and uptake in its new activ­i­ties app for car­ers. The next few years will see fur­ther growth both at home and the US, as well as new mar­kets internationally.

Check out the full arti­cle here

9 Feb­ru­ary, 2021