Member Article

Guerilla undertakes international pharmacy rebrand

Guerilla Communications has successfully re-branded one of Europe’s largest pharmaceutical wholesaler and retailers which has been rolled out in seven countries.

The PHOENIX Group, which supplies around 70,000 pharmacies, doctors and hospitals throughout Europe and has an annual turnover of 21 billion Euros, hired Guerilla, based in the North East of England, following a competitive pitch process involving five short-listed branding agencies based throughout Europe.

The brief was to create an umbrella brand name and identity and Guerilla faced several challenges due to a wide range of factors including – the name had to be memorable, easy to pronounce in all countries and must not have any negative cultural connotations; the brand name would need to be trademarked in each country as well as on a pan-European level for pharmacy operations and private label products; all POS and digital marketing material would need to work across the primary language of each country.

James Allen, Managing Director, Guerilla, said, “With the scale and complexity of the challenge, the team had to develop the name, identity, trademark searches and linguistic checks all at the same time. Over a gruelling three-month period, the team generated over 1,000 potential names that were then checked against linguistic barriers, cultural nuances and local trademarking registration clashes. Most failed to make it through the tests. A dark moment came when our fifth name option was found to literally mean without knickers in Norwegian.”

Eventually, after the client was presented with a shortlist, the name BENU was chosen. The rationale behind the BENU naming strategy both came from, and linked to, the existing PHOENIX Group brand. Research carried out during the naming process revealed that there was a mythical bird called Benu, which had many commonalities with the more familiar Phoenix. Like the Phoenix, BENU is a bird of the sun and a symbol of life, energy, rebirth, renewal and regeneration - a perfect combination for a strong healthcare brand.

Once the brand marque was defined, Guerilla worked closely with PHOENIX and the specific country organisations that were to be rebranded, to develop corporate identity guidelines to define and communicate the brand’s values and personality.

Dr Max Schwesig, Head of Corporate Retail, PHOENIX, said, “We were looking for an agency that focuses on speed, creativity and result orientation, like us.”

The Guerilla team continues to work closely with the PHOENIX Group to develop the BENU brand across all media channels and further ranges of private label packaging.

Guerilla is currently working on creating a new retail environment to further leverage the look and feel of the brand in all PHOENIX group pharmacies across the seven countries.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Madeleine Griffith .