The Challenge

JEA Senior Living called upon Big Buzz to assist with a comprehensive and monumental rebrand including an entirely new name. After nearly 40 years of operation, the organization’s leadership team aimed to recalibrate its messaging, communications and overall presence in the industry. It was important that the new branding reflected the strengths and differentiating factors of its current iteration to showcase its strong suits and emphasize its superiority in the marketplace.

Research

The Big Buzz team has considerable experience with full-scale rebranding and has developed proven, replicable processes to ensure consistent success. The agency began by conducting extensive voice-of-the-customer (VOC) surveys to determine the organization’s distinct selling points in the words of its most loyal resident families. Big Buzz also collaborated with the organization to conduct employee surveys to further elucidate its differentiating factors.

These surveys were designed using Big Buzz’s proprietary process for compiling effective VOC data. Nobody can better define an organization’s brand or the unique value of its offerings better than stakeholders like residents, family members and employees. However, acquiring the most compelling data requires a consistent and precise approach. Over its 10+ years working with the senior living industry, Big Buzz has created distinct sets of questions for both internal and external audiences. These questions position respondents to share their most honest feedback about the organization’s offerings, as well as the factors that differentiate it most from its competitors.

Renaming

To develop the organization’s new name, Big Buzz conducted several brainstorm sessions with its executive team and brand ambassadors to identify the words, thoughts and concepts that would best guide the naming process. Next, the Big Buzz team employed its marketing expertise to generate a list of potential names in four potential categories: functional, personal, brand core/generic, and brand core/evocative. A strong brand core/evocative name evokes an emotion, ties back to the differentiators for which the organization is best known and truly edges out the competition. Over 300 names were considered, each thoroughly vetted by Big Buzz for memorability, resonance with the brand, availability and potential conflicts. Ultimately, the brand core/evocative name Sinceri was chosen, a reflection of the organization’s sincere and genuine nature.

Rebranding

Big Buzz has a deep understanding of brand and its constructs, which allows it to distill the VOC data into the key components of a brand. The survey data was analyzed and used as the foundation for the new brand messaging, including the brand essence, the positioning statement and three unique differentiators. These elements became the cornerstone of the organization’s new communications, fostering consistency among marketing assets and showcasing the elements that made it the most favorable among its best clientele.

Revision of Sales Process

In order to most effectively capitalize on rebranding and renaming, the client needed to recalibrate and distinctly define its sales process. Big Buzz offered support in this endeavor with its “process mapping” exercise. In this collaborative exercise, Big Buzz helped the client identify each step in its sales process and delegate roles and responsibilities to specific team members. The result was a highly functional and repeatable roadmap for approaching the sales process and subsequently increasing occupancy rates.

As of September 1, 2021, JEA Senior Living officially rebranded to Sinceri Senior Living and adopted the brand messaging strategy developed by Big Buzz. The agency assisted Sinceri throughout the entire rollout and announcement processes, including:

• A partial website redevelopment
• Website redesign adhering to new brand and style guidelines
• Revised web copy integrating new brand messaging
• A brand name announcement video featuring footage of real employees presented live to thousands of team members across the country
• Internal and external email announcement campaigns
• Designed social media posts
• …and more

Big Buzz is proud to have assisted this prominent senior living operator with such a large-scale recalibration of messaging and communications and looks forward to continuing its work with Sinceri Senior Living.