U.S. Patent and Trademark Office records show a proposed logo for "Emplify Health" as submitted by Bellin Gundersen Health System. (U.S. Patent and Trademark Office)
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – More than a year after Bellin Health and Gundersen Health System merged into one system with one vision, it appears a new brand for the system could be coming, that’s according to online records.
It was nearly a hundred years ago, when Bellin Hospital was named in honor of its founder, Dr. Julius Bellin. Since then, the healthcare system has grown to operate two hospitals in Northeast Wisconsin and dozens of clinics in Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
And now, more than a year after Bellin Health merged with La Crosse-based Gundersen Health System, to form Bellin Gundersen Health System, it appears a name or brand change could be in the works.
“They say you have to brand the merger and merge the brands, right. And so they’re in the middle of this unique opportunity where a lot of media outlets will be looking at them and so they have an opportunity to talk about this merger, explain who they are now, introduce their new identity, etc. and kind of brand the whole merger,” said St. Norbert College Associate Professor of Communications and Media Studies Mark Glantz.
Part of the branding is a new trademark.
Online records, filed late last year, by Bellin Gundersen Health System, with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, show the request to trademark the name and a logo for “Emplify Health.” The applications lists things like health care and pharmacy services, medical cost management, medical research and education as goods and services used under the “Emplify Health” trademark.
It’s a brand Mark Glantz says is consistent with what other corporations have done in similar situations, “It sounds like the name of a corporation. We took a couple of parts of a couple of words that we generally have positive feelings about and we crammed them together and maybe that will suffice as as corporate identify until they’ve got a reputation on their own.”
One of the trademark applications is for standard characters with no particular font style, size, or color.
The other includes a mint and navy logo featuring a lowercase spelling of “emplify” with a curved line highlighting the letters “L,” “I” “F.”
“It’s a good logo and all that. It looks like a lot of other things I’ve seen, not so much like the Bellin logo. I’m not sure I’ve seen the Donaldson one, to be honest,” said Glantz. He added, “I keep calling it the same thing which shows how much I know about that brand. That brand apparently doesn’t mean that much to me since I keep calling it the wrong thing.”
Glantz says while it may be hard for people, who’ve associated themselves with Bellin or Gundersen, for decades, to get used to the new brand — he anticipates work will soon get underway to make sure “Emplify Health” become a household name like the two systems that came together for it.
He added, “I’m pretty confident that they’re going to pour a whole bunch of money into the campaign that helps people understand the Bellin and Gundersen have become “Emplify.” So, by the time we’re done with the billboards and TV commercials and seeing all the signs change, I think people will be pretty accustomed to the idea.”
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