March of Dimes Fighting for the health of moms and babies

Challenge

While March of Dimes has a recognizable name, the organization’s mission was less known, with the brand focusing solely on premature birth. This limited the perception of the organization’s work at a time when pregnancy, infant, and maternal health, especially among women of color, were in decline. March of Dimes had an obligation to use its brand to highlight the breadth of these issues and the work it does to combat them.

Insight

Expectant parents, especially mothers, take every precaution to educate themselves and prepare for their pregnancies. But the issues that threaten them and their babies are larger than any one person can overcome –they require a movement, led by a champion for moms and babies.

Theory of Change

The goal of this work was to create an accessible, appealing brand that champions moms and babies in order to engage more moms, especially moms of color, to build the movement for healthy moms and strong babies, and highlight all the work March of Dimes does before, during, and after pregnancy to ensure every baby has the opportunity to thrive. 

Action

March of Dimes and Purpose worked together to reposition its brand to more actively involve moms and create a launch campaign that championed moms and their babies.

Purpose designed and conducted a research program to identify and understand the ideal target audience. We fielded a national online survey that revealed the demographics of a core group of potential audience members beyond their existing base, their interests, and overall potential audience size. We conducted qualitative interviews with members of the target audience to better understand their motivations and interests that shaped the final brand strategy.

Logo

Purpose worked with March of Dimes to redesign their logo, moving from a soft, curved figure in pastel colors to a mark that references pregnancy, but takes a more bold approach to typography and color.

Collateral Design

Purpose worked with March of Dimes to ensure that they could launch with revised collateral across all of their offices. From business cards to banners, flyers to memo templates, we refreshed everything with the bold new brand.

Out of Home

The “We Won’t Stop” campaign highlights what it really is to be a mom today–not just the first steps and squishy thighs, but the frustration, the mess, the heartbreak. The campaign is bold, empowering, and unapologetic.

Purpose developed a custom landing page for the campaign to introduce new audiences to the breadth of the organization, and invite them to join our movement.

As part of the campaign, March of Dimes commissioned artist Loveis Wise to design a set of murals featuring healthy moms and strong babies paired with bold facts and statements. March of Dimes installed the mural in Washington DC, and created a paint-by-numbers version for other offices to install in their local communities.

Stylistically, our launch video needed to feel different from typical, saccharine advertising about moms and babies. Tender moments would be unexpectedly paired with an energizing, empowering beat to emphasize the strength of these mothers and the tireless work of March of Dimes.

For the brand launch, the “Won’t Stop” video amassed over 50 million views across TV, social, pre-roll and native — with pre-roll exceeding benchmark completion rates.

Meanwhile, native content tailored to different audience segments exceeded benchmarks across Buzzfeed and Ebony. Native content on Ebony produced significant engagement across shares and comments.

Brand awareness and perception — key goals for the rebrand — increased across multiple priority markets, with the greatest increase in markets with content across multiple media: social, native, pre-roll, TV, podcasts, and OOH.