McKesson

Creating Signal in the Noise

A transformative brand campaign that fueled RelayHealth’s visibility and growth

Project
Beyond Connectivity Campaign

Medium
Integrated Brand Campaign

Roles
Creative Direction
Brand Strategy
Tone of Voice Development
Messaging Architecture
Environmental & Digital Design

Year
2015

Objective
Following a comprehensive visual brand refresh, RelayHealth required a bold campaign for HIMSS 2015, one that would solidify its leadership and differentiate it in the market. With over 41,000 health leaders in attendance, we saw the conference as the ideal platform for introducing a new voice to enhance market resonance.

Our challenge was to develop a messaging strategy that would rise above a landscape saturated with jargon and data-laden phrasing, reintroducing the brand in a manner that would be fresh and invigorating for both new and existing customers.

Solution
Leading a series of collaborative workshops, I set out to transform the way we communicated, helping RelayHealth express itself in a manner that made its audience feel rather than just being informed. We moved away from the industry’s standard of leading with facts, figures, and features and instead embraced a simple idea: all things being equal, people choose brands they relate to and provide confidence.

The outcome: a messaging framework that brought the brand’s new identity to life with the clarity, personality, and polish we sought while respecting the audience’s intelligence and engaging them in unexpected ways.

Beyond Connectivity

At the time, most healthcare IT messaging centered on systems and specifications—the what over the why. But RelayHealth was ready to change the conversation.

We named the campaign Beyond Connectivity, which reflected the brand's new and evolving role in healthcare. This name emphasized the importance of providing seamless, patient-centered data access, promoting interoperability, and advancing value-based care. It also marks a shift toward a more human-centered approach that fosters trust and connection in a field often characterized by complexity. To capture this shift and bring it to life, we developed messaging and a delivery system designed to engage audiences in ways that were, at the time, unexpected for a health tech brand.

A Wink and a Nod

The strategy was simple: start a conversation, not a monologue. We designed the campaign's voice to evolve across the customer journey. Up front, it aimed to spark connection, leveraging metaphor, surprise, and a dash of wit to create instant emotional traction. These early expressions (later dubbed lead lines) debuted at HIMSS and extended to social media in the weeks that followed.

But that was just the entry point. The deeper strategy was a voice tuned to context—consistent but never one-note. As the journey progressed, the messaging grew more targeted and data-rich without ever losing its candor or humanity.

We built a tone system to match, being flexible enough to shift with audience needs, anchored by a unified voice. Tone led the charge. Substance sealed the deal.

Stealth Messaging

The new voice came to life through a modular system we called lead lines—bold one-liners paired with simple, iconic imagery, each mapped to one of four strategic pillars: deep expertise, network breadth, system scalability, and reliable outcomes. We used metaphor and tone to distill big ideas into quick, memorable moments. These weren't ads but more proof points in disguise, crafted to shift perception with clarity, confidence, and character.

Capturing Attention

To give the new messaging the presence it deserved, we needed a delivery mechanism as bold as the message itself. That took shape as a 12-foot-by-8-foot digital billboard mounted high above the main corridor at the HIMSS conference. It cycled through dozens of lead lines, punctuated with key stats, event schedules, and a launch video introducing the Beyond Connectivity campaign. Amid the noise of jargon-heavy copy and overloaded infographics, this clean, high-impact display cut through immediately. Its stripped-back design, bold palette, and sharp messaging turned heads, drawing interest from attendees and competitors alike.

HIMSS Conference and Campaign Artifacts

HIMSS conference pull-up banners

Sales team tablet wallpapers

Event invitaiton handouts

Internal Resonance

The success at HIMSS gave the messaging a second life—this time, inside the company. Within weeks, requests for new lead line variations began to arrive from across departments. The campaign spread organically, translated onto t-shirts, internal monitors, pull-up banners, and, most prominently, as a series of six-foot mounted posters welcoming visitors in the elevator lobbies of RelayHealth's headquarters. What began as a creative experiment struck a chord with internal leadership, continuing to evolve and grow.

Clarifying the Signal

This campaign began with a hunch that voice and tone could shift perception more quickly than facts and features alone. I opened with a few bold designs and a distinct new voice and the shift was immediate. What began as a creative experiment quickly became a brand-wide movement, reshaping how RelayHealth communicated for years to come.

Snapshots from the Campaign