Research | Strategy | Branding
The future of healthcare
Maridulu Budyari Gumal is an academic health science partnership. Fourteen leaders from diverse organisations working as one – a radical shift for industries which are known to work in silos. Our research involved untangling a complex web of perspectives, audiences, geographic footprints, and local and global competitors. Plus weighty academic, health and science literature. It also meant understanding how brand can intersect appropriately with culture.
The result is a multi-award winning brand that aligns fourteen leaders around its purpose. That rallies the Australian healthcare community to come together to change the future of healthcare. That’s creative, compelling and unexpected in its category. And embodies the spirit of co-creation at its core.
Research
SunnySideUp started with each of the fourteen partner organisations. We discussed their aspirations, investment in, and vision for the future. We also looked into Maridulu Budyari Gumal’s diverse geographic footprint. A region which includes a +2 million population including 140 nationalities.
We investigated government healthcare agendas, different cultural perspectives and needs within the community, and understood why industry peers and supporters value the partnership.
The partnership’s unique name became the focus for our strategy. The name was gifted to the partnership by the Dharug people and means “working together for good health and wellbeing.” More than a name, it’s a promise to engage with the health of Australia’s first people and all peoples. It’s an invitation to co-create a better future for everyone. It reflects the partnership’s commitment to work together for the benefit of all.
Strategy
As a new partnership, Maridulu Budyari Gumal needed a strategy that would launch their ambition with gravitas and excitement.
The whole process of creating the brand was an exercise in co-creation. This began with the brand artwork – a series of contemporary Aboriginal artworks inspired by place, community and partnership – co-created with Professor Lisa Jackson-Pulver. Art is an important communication tool for the partnership. It bridges the gap between the complex world of research and the community’s experience of healthcare. SunnySideUp combined brand insights with Lisa’s artistic talent and knowledge of Aboriginal culture to extend artwork into a tool fit for the brand.
We also included imagery of landscapes and waterways in the visual language, to reflect Maridulu Budyari Gumal’s geographic footprint, the interconnected waterways that bind them, and the diverse communities it represents.
Results
It is a gargantuan effort to bring people together in a partnership of this size and complexity.
The brand has given Maridulu Budyari Gumal’s fourteen partners, 50,000 staff and 100,000 students a reference point, and has rallied a diverse community of people and disciplines around a call for change.
The Maridulu Budyari Gumal brand has been employed as so much more than a traditional brand; it is a tool to both connect and reflect the population Maridulu Budyari Gumal serves.
This has helped the partnership reach more people and see their work translated across different health silos: Work which is expanding beyond their footprint, out into the rest of the country, bringing Australian healthcare into the future.
The Maridulu Budyari Gumal rebrand has won two awards.
Transform Awards
The Transform Awards honours and rewards the most innovative, creative and successful brand work in ANZ.
Gold | Best strategic or creative development of a new brand
Gold | Best visual identity from the healthcare and pharmaceuticals sector
Testimonial
“Achieving alignment of purpose in large-scale health science partnerships is challenging. For a new organisation like ours, being able to crystallise a brand that encapsulates our mission, differentiates our organisation, and is broadly accepted by the diverse group of stakeholders and communities we serve, seemed an almost insurmountable task.
SunnySideUp led the establishment of the brand with great skill and expertise, as well as exceptional insight and sensitivity to the needs of our partners and the communities we serve. The process has also been great fun for all involved and the outcome applauded by all.”
Chris Levi
CEO, Maridulu Budyari Gumal