BY Armin

A New Emblem in Health Insurance

When we were shopping for health insurance about a year ago I was dismayed about how bleak the design of that industry really is. Other than some obligatory happy-people photographs everything just feels rather antiseptic. One of the options we were presented as a front-runner was for HIP Health Plan of New York and its design did not instill enough confidence to plunk down more than a thousand dollars. Eventually we went with a provider that had a decent corporate identity and the best coverage. But enough of the set up. Recently the above mentioned provider, HIP, and Group Health Incorporated (GHI) became affiliated under a new parent company, EmblemHealth and have begun a very visible campaign in New York to promote the company.

Detail of print ad. You can see the full ad and others at Bestadsontv.com (free registration to see full scale).

The advertising campaign has been developed by Hill Holiday, and it revolves around using the logo as a patch to create other hand-drawn, line-art shapes, which sometimes works and others it feel forced, but the effect in general is pleasant. Siegel+Gale developed the branding strategy and Interbrand designed the logo. Considering all the different creative groups working on this, the result feels remarkably uncompromising. When you consider identity design for health insurance — with all its blue and aqua hues, and all its shield and cross imagery — this logo for EmblemHealth nicely breaks away from convention with a warm and playful color palette and a simple, abstract icon. What does the icon mean, though? I don’t think it really matters: It’s pretty, it’s authoritative, it looks confident and it’s memorable. I wonder if I had started my health insurance today if I would have given a second thought to HIP.

\n\nWhen we were shopping for health insurance about a year ago I was dismayed about how bleak the design of that industry really is. Other than some obligatory happy-people photographs everything just feels rather antiseptic. One of the options we were presented as a front-runner was for HIP Health Plan of New York and its design did not instill enough confidence to plunk down more than a thousand dollars. Eventually we went with a provider that had a decent corporate identity and the best coverage. But enough of the set up. Recently the above mentioned provider, HIP, and Group Health Incorporated (GHI) became affiliated under a new parent company, EmblemHealth and have begun a very visible campaign in New York to promote the company.

Many thanks to our ADV @ UnderConsideration Partners