You’ll Feel Better Inside – Bob Akers and Tim O’Day
All non-profits must maintain laser focus on excellent stewardship of donor dollars. Similarly, board members must bring forth resources to effectively fulfill the organization’s mission. In the end, what matters most to Wellness House is that talented, generous, passionate individuals get “bitten by the Wellness House bug” and jump in to do what they can in the service of people affected by cancer. This is exactly what happened to Bob Akers and Tim O’Day in the summer of 2009.
At that time, Wellness House was beginning work on a strategic objective to review our brand. We were humbled by the estimated cost of such an endeavor. Wellness House Board Chair at the time, Bill Haarlow, asked his wife, Lauren, to reach out to past Leo Burnett colleagues with the appropriate expertise. In a heartbeat, Lauren knew Bob and Tim were our go-to guys. They were quickly brought up to speed and accepted the invitation to provide pro-bono consultation.
In August 2009, they began culling through our current strategic plan, history, market research and more. Within a few weeks, Tim developed the story, niche and voice of Wellness House, and Bob began the creative work. The work – a significant departure from our logo of twenty years – was artfully presented to the board who responded with wholehearted enthusiasm. In particular, a new tagline, “You’ll feel better inside,” struck a chord that has resonated throughout the Wellness House community.
But the duo didn’t stop there; they played a large role in producing our new website at the time and continued to provide guidance on communicating our message. Reaching out to marketing and advertising contacts, they secured a media plan at a significantly reduced rate. It launched in late spring with TV and print, conveying our message in a clear and fresh way. In this, our 20th anniversary year, Bob also worked magic on the design of event marketing pieces for the Walk and Ball.
But wait…there’s more! The Courtyard logo still matched the original Wellness House logo. Bob and Tim made a field trip to The Courtyard, met with key volunteer leadership, and within days translated the input into a new logo, tagline.
The Wellness House mission is sustained by a community of volunteers and donors like Bob and Tim. Their work exists to this day in everything we do to help those with cancer “Feel Better Inside”.
