I read with interest, that just before Christmas one of our former clients, Denplan, was being sold by one of our current clients, AXA, to one of our target clients, Simply Health.
Denplan, for those who do not know, was created by two dentists, Marilyn Orcharton and Stephen Noar, in 1986 – as a system that simplified administration within the dental practice, allowing dentists to charge their patients a fixed monthly fee, for regular examinations and treatment.
Now recognised as the UKs dental payment plan specialist, Denplan has over 6,500 member dentists across the UK with more than 1.8 million patients.
But we first met them in 1994, when they were part of the PPPhealthcare group, who in turn were sold to AXA in 1998.
Whilst this selling and re-selling is interesting in terms of company history, of more interest is the enduring quality of the identities we designed for both PPPhealthcare and Denplan, and how the prudence of designing even for ‘transition’ has value.
Those familiar with the Smith & Milton back catalogue, will readily recall the PPPhealthcare mark. The big triple P with its gold heart. Some may even know the reason for its format – at launch the heart was substituted with other symbols to represent both range of companies within the group, but also to allow their individuality to flourish.
It will not surprise you to learn that the group symbol we developed for Denplan, to work with the Triple P, was a green apple.
A perfect, crisp green apple, that a healthy set of teeth could bite on.
It replaced a stylised, graphic version that Denplan was then using.The idea of course was that over time, this single apple would be subsumed into the PPPhealthcare brand identity and like all the group companies the monolithic PPP+gold heart would rule.
Commercial history set a different outcome and that identity vision was never realised, yet nearly twenty years on, Denplan still proudly display their singular Apple.
The question now for Simply Health is will they seek to stamp their own colourful graphic doctrine on the Denplan brand, or will they acknowledge that the power of recognition that the Denplan identity has established? Could it offer a more interesting direction for their own identity?
For in the battle for recall in our over crowded memory banks, what is easier to grasp, something familiar, appealing and relevant to health, such as a shiny apple
or
another swizzling rainbow, reminiscent of – the spinning wait cursor – derogatorily named, the spinning beach ball of death. http://spinningbeachballofdeath.com
I rest my case.
