The story behind NewYork-Presbyterian’s ‘Stay Amazing’ brand refresh

It wasn’t long after Devika Mathrani joined NewYork-Presbyterian in July 2021 that she decided the health system’s old brand needed to go.

“I think it was the first week of August that I had a conversation with my incredible CEO, Dr. [Steven J.] Corwin,” Mathrani, NewYork-Presbyterian’s chief marketing and communications officer, recalled. “I said, I think I need to blow up the brand a bit.”

At the time of Mathrani’s arrival, NewYork-Presbyterian was using the tagline “Amazing Things are Happening Here,” brand messaging that had been in place for years following the 1998 merger between The New York Hospital and The Presbyterian Hospital that created the new institution. The tagline and accompanying black-and-white documentary-style ads, in which patients talk about their experience with the health system, had been praised, yes—but it was past time for a change, Mathrani said.

“The reality was that the campaign and the message had gotten quite dated,” Mathrani told Marketing Brew. “It was all about the white coats and the nurses being amazing, but it didn’t really bring the consumer into the story.”

Mathrani got to work, looking to shift the brand’s messaging in a rapid four-month timeframe to focus more on everyday care in partnership with Havas New York. “I want to be a partner in people’s preventative health journeys, not just this scary place where they go when they’re really, really sick,” she said.

By November 2021, NewYork-Presbyterian had a shorter, snappier brand borne from the old one: “Stay Amazing.” Mathrani felt it was particularly resonant “in a coming-out-of-Covid environment where people just needed some optimism.”

Since rolling out the new brand, she and her team have also overhauled other portions of the health system’s marketing approaches, including its social strategy, content strategy, and earned media strategies—all of which “wouldn’t have made sense under the old branding.”

“The reason why we did a sprint to make that happen was because it became the foundation of all the work to follow,” she said.