Laya Healthcare's Major Rebrand Stays a Beat Ahead the Rest

Laya healthcare today revealed a first look at its major new brand positioning, ‘A Beat Ahead’, the most significant revitalisation of its brand story and identity since it first launched in Ireland almost ten years ago. 

Marking a confident brand evolution for Ireland’s fastest growing health insurer, the new brand platform is centred around a purpose-driven theme ‘A Beat Ahead’, which is an outward expression of Laya healthcare’s mission to empower the health and wellbeing of its members by offering access to the best medical experts, meaningful preventative health screenings and improving access to digital health innovations for its 620,000 members and their loved ones.  

Kevin Kent, head of marketing at Laya healthcare comments: “We’re coming up to our 10th birthday as Laya healthcare and in the last three years we’ve doubled our brand awareness and consideration scores and outpaced the market in terms of our membership growth. Our brand is well established - we’re the No.1 most trusted health insurer, and it’s now time to evolve our brand story and bring a new articulation, look and feel to our brand vision which centres around empowering our members to look after their health and wellbeing. 

“Being ‘A Beat Ahead’ is as much a motivational statement as it is a reaffirmation of our long-standing promise to ‘look after you always’. By being ‘A Beat Ahead’, Laya healthcare will always be ahead of our members, leading the way, always evolving, never skipping a beat, thinking of new ways to make them better, before they’re even ill. We all know we shouldn’t wait until we’re sick to look after our health, regular health checks and screenings are more important than ever and that’s the space we’ll occupy now with our new brand positioning and our research shows us that’s the reassurance and confidence our members want”, Kevin added.

Created by TBWA\Dublin, the €3.5m multi-channel campaign features fresh new brand identity assets created by strategic creative branding agency, Dynamo. Kevin explains, “We’re taking the strongest elements of our brand heritage and enlivening them in new ways to really pop and cut through. Our pink and blue brand colours remain and we’re introducing magnetic new visuals and graphic styles that prominently feature our distinctive heartbeat pulse. The heartbeat – a sign of life and vitality - has been a feature of our brand identity since day one. It’s a very recognisable part of our current brand identity that we will bring to prominence and life now in a dynamic new way.”

Storytelling takes centre stage in a fresh new creative direction for Laya healthcare, with Nigerian-Irish Poet, Performer and Playwright Felicia Olusanya cast as the central character who creates a vivid picture of why being ‘A Beat Ahead’ matters.  

Des Creedon, executive creative director at TBWA\Dublin, says that the campaign is a true manifestation of the company’s commitment to its members. “In developing this campaign, we all knew we wanted something that was fresh and showed the dynamism of Laya healthcare. ‘A Beat Ahead’ is the perfect platform to show how Laya healthcare is a company that leads the way in healthcare and is always thinking of new ways to look after its members. Creatively, we wanted to show this powerful momentum and dynamism in a modern and bold way. One that will help to win a new generation of members that want to be empowered to stay one beat ahead when it comes to their health and wellbeing.” 

Paul Arthurs, head of art at TBWA\Dublin, comments on the striking visual style and delivery - Interpreting the platform of ‘A Beat Ahead’ to the viewer presented a real opportunity for a fresh new take on delivery and striking visual style. Taking our inspiration from the beats and rhythms of spoken word and percussion artists we devised a style that is colourfully dynamic, has positive momentum and propels the message in an upbeat and invigorating way. We paired this way of speaking with a visual style of effortlessly connected scenarios, with colourful characters, all in a state of forward flow. This storytelling aesthetic expresses the beats of life itself, as a shared rhythm, and an uplifting tempo we can all connect with."

Mindshare planned the major new above the line campaign, which will launch week beginning 11th October with full integration across TV, radio, digital, OOH, video-led social media, display and PR. TV formats will be cut to 30” lengths, with shorter edits created by TBWA\Dublin specially shot for a digital campaign across Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter.