In the Edmonton community of Sherwood Park, Pangman Development Corporation and Synergy Wellness Centre launched plans to build a unique, multi-faceted seniors care facility. They hired Optima Living Communities, which runs several senior care centres in Alberta and British Columbia to operate it.
Optima approached Red Rocket Creative Strategies for help with the branding and marketing of the new care centre. We were tasked with coming up with a name, brand strategy, brand identity, and digital marketing strategy.
Our goal was to create a brand that would both resonate with the local community and have a connection with the surrounding geography. We wanted to develop something that represented a multi-faceted meaning of wellness.
We approached the job in four phases.
Phase one saw the development of an overall brand strategy. Through our market research and customer audits, we defined what seniors expect from a new seniors’ community facility in the Northern Alberta market. Additionally, we researched key trends that the senior care market was seeing both locally and globally. We developed a clear and inspiring brand strategy that became the heart of everything we created thereafter.
Phase two focused on naming the development. We took Optima through our eight-step naming process and came up with the name “Aster Gardens”—a name derived from the Aster flower, which grows locally in the region.
Phase three included designing the identity and graphic standards manual, which included brand colours, tone of voice, and the correct application of their brand on promotional materials.
Phase four involved creating the website. From wireframing to design, content creation, and development, we built a website that resonated with the brand and was set up to function as a marketing machine for Aster Gardens.
- Market Research
- Competitor Audit
- Positioning Platform Development
- Brand Strategy
- Naming
- Visual Identity Design
- Graphic Standards Development
- Website Design
- Marketing Strategy
The Aster flower is native to Sherwood Park. It’s a resilient and adaptable plant and a vibrant beauty that reaches its peak late in the season—a fitting metaphor for the residents of Aster Gardens. The name aster is rooted in Greek mythology and its meanings include love and wisdom.
It’s said that the aster was created by the tears of the Greek goddess, Astraea. One day, she was so upset by how few stars there were in the dark sky, that she began to cry. Her tears fell to the ground and turned into star-shaped aster flowers. Thus, the flower was named after her, with aster meaning ‘star’.
After the name and brand were developed, Optima Living Communities needed a website to tell the Aster Gardens brand story, through the lens of Optima’s philosophy.
It needed to reflect Optima’s innovative approach to creating Aster Gardens. We focused on highlighting the facility’s “intentional design”, which was based on the idea that residents should be at the heart of every decision. We also conveyed Optima’s aspiration of creating a “community hub” around Aster Gardens, in which non-residents could join in with the centre’s activities.
We built a responsive website with a connection to a customer relationship management platform (CRM) to manage and nurture leads. Finally, we developed a digital marketing and lead generation strategy for Optima to carry forward in order to attract new residents.
Optima Living Communities undertook a broad search to find a partner to best represent the vision, values and commitment we have for the new development we are building in Sherwood Park.
Perry Boeker and Angela Dallin presented to us a story board and perspective that was bang on from the first presentation all the way to completion. They made come alive a series of brainstorms into bringing alive the branding and naming of our site.
In addition, they built a web site that we can proud to say realized our original commitment to the project.
The cornerstone aspect of their work was to take our credo of Let Us Welcome You Home and convert that into People Place Community as three pillars of our brand from which they would go to articulate the name and vision for the new development.
There is no one better in the market for branding and naming. They are detail-oriented, they do their homework and most of all they embed themselves as part of your team to realize your vision.
Karim Kassam
Co-Founder & Principal
Optima Living Communities
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