The Brief
For the last few years, Barley has worked with EACTS to help promote its highly anticipated Annual Meeting through targeted marketing campaigns – a significant healthcare branding exercise.
The EACTS Annual Meeting is one of the largest events in the cardiothoracic calendar, uniting professionals and representatives from the industry to discover new technologies and methods to improve global patient outcomes in cardiovascular and thoracic surgery.
The event holds a strong identity within the sector, therefore it’s crucial that each year the branding is different from the last, as well as eye-catching, unique and recognisable to target audiences.
Insights and Approach
To produce a new brand identity for each year’s event, we start by looking at the unique cultural nuances of the event’s location, and identify how its history, science and community all come together.
Alongside colour, fonts, design and formatting – straplines are also an essential part of the brand. For instance, the strapline for the 2023 Annual Meeting “Raising the bar” acknowledges Vienna’s musical background and links to what attendees are experiencing at the event.
The brand doesn’t just get used in the assets Barley designs for EACTS’ online platforms (website, social media, email, YouTube and the App), it plays a huge role in the environmental branding of the event. This includes flags outside the entrance, screens inside and outside of the venue, the exhibition, newsletters, lanyards, posters and more.
The Outcome
As a result, our approach has led to the creation of branding that is not only practical but is artistic and clearly marks each EACTS Annual Meeting as one-of-a-kind.
The last three years have proved hugely successful, with the creation of recognisable branding and accompanying straplines that clearly mark each event as individual and reflect the history of the location;
- Barcelona 2021: with organically-shaped mosaic style inspired by Gaudi, Barcelona’s strapline “Reconnecting” represented the community coming together again after COVID-19
- Milan 2022: bringing Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vitruvian man into the branding hints at his craft and precision, matched only by surgeons. “Learning together” signifies the core aims and objectives of 2022’s Annual Meeting
- Vienna 2023: alluding to Mozart’s birthplace, the branding for “Raising the bar” contains music motifs, from the treble and bass clef logos, through to the event name itself.
The same process has been adopted to produce this year’s branding:
- Lisbon 2024: The Association takes pride in their past meetings and is looking forward to exploring new opportunities at this year’s event, symbolised by the phrase “Navigating new horizons.”