Hazelden and Betty Ford Center were household names long before they merged in 2014. Creating a new brand that spoke to the legacy and ambition of both organizations was a big task. To fully realize their opportunity to become the mainstream leader in all things recovery related, we needed to uncover an inspiring truth that could break through the cultural stigma that surrounded addiction and recovery.
As we dug in and learned more about both businesses, we noticed that a single page, deep-linked on Hazelden's existing website was receiving over 170,000 unique organic visitors every day. Astronomically more than all the other pages combined, including their home page. It turned out, hundreds of thousands of people who were living in recovery, visited their “Thought for the Day” page to receive a small piece of wisdom as they went about their day. We realized how rich and robust recovery community was around the brand and turned our focus there, as opposed to focusing on the dread and trauma of substance abuse like the rest of the category had done.
#weareproof became our guiding motivation in everything we created for the new brand. To show the mainstream population that life in recovery wasn't just possible, but it was actually desirable. And here are hundreds of thousands of people who are absolutely living incredible lives to prove it. We created a brand that acted more like a media company than a clinic. We acted as a source of inspiration, advocacy and education in the content we promoted. We reimagined the new brand's visual identity, website and all other materials by shining a light on life in recovery that had previously been anonymous. And it worked.
For the past decade, much of the groundwork (and the work) we created is still active. Furthermore, the organization has grown by leaps in bounds, not just in addiction treatment revenue, but in publishing, advocacy, digital tools and all the other aspects of their brand that continues to inspire hundreds of thousands daily.
Brand Identity
Website
Collateral
OOH
Digital
Social
CEO - Mark Mishek
VP Marketing - Melissa Fors Shackelford
Director of Communications - Dean Peterson
Communications Manager - Jeremiah Gardener
CCO - Keith Wolf
CSO - Brant Haenel
Creative Director - Brian Hurley
Designer - Matt Lunneborg
Designer - Shawn Bielefeldt
Copywriter - David Reidinger
Creative Manager - Sarah Maki
Project Manager - Kym Carranza
User Experience - Callie Meyers
