Crafting a vibrant brand experience for a visionary healthcare upfront.
The partnership between DH and Publicis Health Media (PHM) began with a daring challenge: to craft the creative and environmental strategy for their second annual HealthFront, a groundbreaking, first-of-its-kind forum in the healthcare industry. PHM aimed to drive growth and build community, and we delivered by designing a seamless attendee journey and messaging strategy that connected every element of the event. This milestone collaboration not only launched our ongoing partnership, but also reinforced the PHM and HealthFront brand as catalysts for innovation and connection in the health marketing industry.
"A huge thank you to this team for taking this very long journey with PHM and for your constant support and professionalism. I am so grateful! The feedback has been extremely positive, and Alison and Andrea are so pleased. We look forward to partnering again in 2023!”
PHM had a bold vision for their hybrid event: unite 400 in-person and 200 remote attendees at Spring Studios in NYC, create an intuitive three-floor experience to navigate, amplify their strategic messaging, and build a market-shaping forum that inspired growth, connections, and measurable outcomes. To prepare, DH thoroughly researched PHM’s inaugural 2019 event, brand identity, website, and communications, allowing us to enter the kickoff meeting equipped with a clear understanding of their goals and initial creative concepts. Building on this foundation, we developed a cohesive event strategy that seamlessly connected pre-meeting communication, registration, on-site design, and the overall attendee experience. By aligning each element with PHM’s vision, we could curate an engaging, collaborative event that resonated with both in-person and remote audiences while fostering meaningful networking opportunities.
Our design journey for HealthFront 2022 centered on creating a distinctive visual identity that could potentially be carried through each following year, ensuring attendees associated the event with a unique memory. We began by aligning with PHM’s refreshed brand guidelines, incorporating all 10 colors, textures, and shapes to reflect themes of community and growth. In the next design iteration, we introduced a modern 90s-inspired aesthetic, with graphics symbolizing movement, collaboration, and evolution. This approach visually captured the interconnected nature of the event and its focus on innovation. When the client’s feedback requested that we develop a more artistic and human design, we created a wallpaper in the third design that represented diversity and inclusion in healthcare, transforming the industrial space at Spring Studios into a purposeful and welcoming environment. Finally, in helping establish their 2022 campaign, we delivered a clean, crisp design with a dynamic, tracing light that symbolized inspiration, networking, and the spark of ideas. Throughout each iteration, the concept of movement, connection, and growth remained a consistent thread, tying the designs together and reinforcing the mission of HealthFront.
Our team delivered an immersive, multi-floor event designed to optimize engagement and seamlessly connect attendees to the PHM brand. Vibrant greenery and branding, creative “health challenges,” and strategically placed signage guided traffic, while embedded QR codes located throughout the event space linked attendees to our proprietary meeting platform for a fully integrated experience. The main stage content featured headline speakers, short panels, and dynamic media—paired with the NYC skyline as the backdrop and leveraging LED screens for visual clarity. The reception space came alive with towering 15-foot branded trees, multiple photo ops for group and professional photos, curated food and beverage, and a DJ tying together the ultimate networking hub. Engagement was crucial, as our speech coach helped prep 22 presenters for the planned programming; key moments like Brandon Leake’s slam poetry and Jay Shetty’s closing meditation captivated attendees.
Additionally, the virtual meeting platform helped bring it all together, offering access to the live broadcast, registration details, review the agenda and speaker bios, connect with other attendees, and navigate a 360° video map of the entire venue.
We achieved remarkable results by designing an event that authentically represented the PHM brand,
engaged attendees through high-sensory experiences, and encouraged meaningful contributions from
both in-person and remote participants. The event met its ambitious objectives: fostering innovation and
business opportunities in the health industry, creating a forward-thinking forum for emerging ideas, and
providing attendees with opportunities to learn, network, and be inspired. The impact was evident in the
metrics—66,266 interactions were logged on the meeting app, averaging 104 interactions per user, and
17,610 total logins reflected strong engagement across 635 participants. This event not only delivered
measurable success, but set a new standard for creating impactful, buzzworthy experiences. The feedback
from Andrea Palmer, PHM President, speaks to the reason our partnership continues to this day: “Two
days, 400 attendees, dozens of speakers, fireside chats, seven new product announcements, several
videos and even a Town Hall—all this was made possible by all of you! HealthFront is our industry’s first
and only upfront exclusively for health. It played host to an extraordinary exchange of ideas, and I hope we
will be continuing these conversations throughout the year—until our next HealthFront, that is! This event
is a real labor of #PHMLove, and it’s heartwarming to see how well received this year’s program was.”
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