Looking after the people who look after you
Having created Pall Mall’s new brand identity and subsequently becoming a key creative partner to the business, our relationship has extended far beyond how the brand communicates with its patients. Just as important is how Pall Mall communicates with its own people, ensuring everyone understands the business, its values and the role they play within it. After all, a healthcare brand that puts people first should start with its own. Engaging.

More than just a facelift
As Pall Mall’s new identity became established externally, attention turned inwards. Existing internal communications needed bringing into line with the new brand, beginning with the induction materials used to welcome new members of staff.

The initial requirement was for an induction presentation, but we quickly saw an opportunity to create something considerably more engaging than another booklet or emailed PDF. Working alongside long-time collaborator Jeff Edis, we began exploring how the visual language we had already created for Pall Mall could be used to communicate with its people in a completely different way.

What started as an exercise in updating existing materials soon became an opportunity to create an internal communications system with a personality of its own.

Bringing the brand to life
At the heart of Pall Mall’s identity were the biomorphic shapes originally inspired by the relationship between life and form. For the induction project, we quite literally brought them to life.

Jeff developed a script that placed the shapes at the centre of the story, while we explored how they might move, interact and develop personalities of their own. A number of animation styles were considered before working closely with Skyline Studio to translate the concept into a fully animated, twelve-minute induction film.

The success of the film gave us a new family of characters and, with it, a visual language that could extend far beyond the original project. When Pall Mall subsequently asked us to create a handbook for new starters, we deliberately avoided producing a conventional corporate document. Instead, we created a wirobound book that played with different formats, layouts and the animated characters themselves, turning what could have been a fairly functional piece of communication into something far more engaging.

The characters became a recurring feature throughout Pall Mall’s internal communications, appearing across presentations, documents and new starter materials. They were also used to promote HEART — Pall Mall’s internal values of Helpful, Empathetic, Accountable, Resourceful and Teamwork — bringing personality and consistency to posters and communications across the business.

What began as a request for a presentation ultimately became an extension of the Pall Mall brand in its own right. A flexible internal communications system that took familiar elements of the identity and gave them a new purpose, helping Pall Mall communicate its culture and values in a way that felt engaging, memorable and unmistakably theirs.

– Brand Strategy: Jeff Edis

– Copywriting: Words, Words, Words

– Animation: Skyline Studio