Shinebox Selected as eHealth’s Brand Agency
By The Minneapolis Egotist / /
A partnership that builds on the rebranding of eHealth in 2023
Yesterday was the last day of the Medicare Annual Enrollment Period. And if you watch TV in October and November, you can’t escape the annual pitch to seniors on Medicare. These commercials often have older TV actors and sports figures reading scripts that leverage fear and anxiety.
Exhibit A:
But it doesn’t have to be that way. That was the premise of a complete brand overhaul for eHealth, Inc., a leading online private health insurance marketplace. And consumers were eager for the change.
“We listened carefully to the consumers we serve, and every change we’ve made in our rebranding process puts them first,” said eHealth’s Chief Marketing Officer Michelle Barbeau. “We’re addressing the trust deficit among Medicare beneficiaries by embracing transparency and simply showing them how easy it can be to compare plans from top insurers to find the right match.”
Shinebox — an agency that helps brands disrupt markets through powerful storytelling — was enlisted to develop a new brand for eHealth that launched just in time for this year’s Enrollment Period. The new brand includes a new identity, a more intuitive omnichannel user experience, a new tone in consumer messaging and a new campaign with television, direct mail, print, radio and online ads.
As part of the rebrand, eHealth introduced a new spokeswoman, Eve, as a consistent face of the company. To find her, eHealth and Shinebox held 170 auditions and sought feedback from seniors to see who they connected with best. Eve is appearing in every channel, including a reconfigured website.
According to Ross Phernetton, VP of Strategy & Creative at Shinebox, “Being transparent is a practice, not just a message. When it comes to branding, there can’t be any gaps between what you say and what you do. Because eHealth lives up to that ideal, the idea behind the TV spots was simple: show the difference between people using eHealth and not using it. That’s putting a lot of trust in your consumer, your brand experience and your agency.”
Shinebox and eHealth conducted a real-time user experiment with two groups of Medicare beneficiaries who were invited to research and select a new Medicare plan for themselves. Half of them were given eHealth, while the other half used the usual methods of searching online or calling a non-eHealth agent. The experiment was filmed and became the new direct-response TV spots. The real consumers using eHealth reported feeling 25% less stress* than those who did not use eHealth.
“There was real need for transformation in how Medicare was marketed to seniors — one that’s positive and empowers people,” says Randall Larson, founder of Shinebox. The campaign uses the tagline, Your Medicare Matchmaker™ and includes a companion brand TV spot. It features Eve and the analogy of a vending machine for the campaign’s signature mantra: all-in-one plans, all in one place. Year-round advertising for the private health insurance market is being developed, and enthusiasm for the new brand is evident across the organization.
*Based on an eHealth study of 24 beneficiary participants conducted in June of 2023, utilizing eHealth services proved to be approximately 25% less stressful for beneficiaries compared to selecting and enrolling in Medicare coverage by starting with a preferred search engine.
About Shinebox
We’re disrupting for good. This purpose-driven brand, design and motion studio helps ambitious companies challenge the status quo, change the game and move their brands forward with human understanding. Founded in 2010, the agency works with challenger brands in the health and wellbeing sectors. Our client partners have included Boston Scientific, eHealth Inc., Pentair, Electrolux, Sanitaire, Cencora (AmerisourceBergen), 3M and Nexcare. Learn more at shinebox.com.
[Image and videos courtesy of Shinebox.]
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