Birmingham, Ala.-based UAB St. Vincent's never considered dropping either of the two historic names for its rebrand, a marketing leader told Becker's.
UAB St. Vincent's is the new name for the five-hospital system that Birmingham-based UAB Medicine acquired Nov. 1 from St. Louis-based Ascension. The deal, which creates a combined $8 billion health system, was valued at $450 million.
"Our desire was always to cobrand the name for the acquired sites," said Adrienne Steading, assistant vice president of marketing for UAB Medicine. "St. Vincent's has a 125-year history in our market, and we wanted to be sure we were leaning into the trust the community has with St. Vincent's."
The rebranding process will take about a year and encompass physical changes to signage, stationery and business cards, as well as digital modifications to social media channels, Google business listings and email signatures.
"It's also staff training," Ms. Steading said. "It's reeducating our associates in terms of when they answer the phone, they're not saying 'Ascension St. Vincent's' anymore."
Ms. Steading realizes it will be an uphill battle to get community members to call the health system "UAB St. Vincent's." After rebrands, local residents often continue to use the colloquial name for the organization (in this case, "St. Vincent's").
"Our goal with our rebrand is just to continuously reiterate 'UAB St Vincent's', and over time we believe that will be picked up," Ms. Steading said. "That happens with any type of renaming — people hold on to that legacy name. That's something we as marketers have to continue to instill in people, just reiterating the name as much as we can."
UAB Medicine, which now has 16 hospitals, held rebranding focus groups that touched on details down to the color palettes and typography of the new logo. UAB St Vincent's is also developing its new mission and core values. Ms. Steading said it's unknown how much the rebrand will cost.
"For us, the important aspect is we have two of the best healthcare organizations in the state coming together to improve the health and lives of our community and the state we call home," she said.