Building The Children’s Minnesota Brand, with Hillery Smith Shay

Hillery Smith Shay, MBA is chief marketing and experience officer, senior vice president of communications at Children’s Minnesota. 

Hillery Shay joined Children’s Minnesota in 2021, as VP of marketing and
communications and is now chief marketing and experience officer, senior
vice president of communications. She provides strategic direction for
organizational marketing and communications. She is also responsible for
defining and building an organization-wide experience strategy.

Ms. Shay brings nearly 25 years of leadership experience in health care and
mass communication, with a proven track record of success leading national
and global public health campaigns and marketing initiatives. Prior to her
role at Children’s Minnesota, Shay served in leadership roles at Abbott Labs
leading professional education, marketing, communications and scientific
congress strategy. She also served as a journalist and team leader for more
than 10 years at the Associated Press and the Baltimore Sun, including as a
photojournalist covering two sitting U.S. presidents as well as the Pentagon
on 9/11.

Ms. Shay earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Haverford College in
Pennsylvania and a master’s degree in business administration from Bethel
University in Minnesota. She is an active member of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority,
inc.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

• How Children's Minnesota faced and overcame a significant branding challenge after shortening their name, leading to market confusion with other similarly named experts in their market.
• How adding "The Kid Experts" to the Children's Minnesota brand was implemented to create clear differentiation and clarify their identity in the market.
• The step’s that Children’s Minnesota took to safeguard their brand identity.
• How the repositioning strategy resulted in measurable improvements in brand perception, evidenced by a significant increase in their NRC Health image and reputation score over a three-year period.
• The crucial role of consistent implementation of the "The Kid Experts" branding across all touchpoints, including physical hospital and clinic spaces, for reinforcing the new brand identity.
• How the "Raise Them Up" campaign emerged from community trauma and served as a powerful example of a brand connecting with its audience through hope and advocacy for children.
• How Children's Minnesota demonstrated a commitment to inclusive branding by intentionally reaching diverse communities in their service area through translated materials and tailored outreach efforts.
• About the tangible results of the "Raise Them Up" campaign in engaging diverse communities, including increased clinic visits requiring translation and higher conversion rates for targeted advertising.
• About the importance of a long-term perspective in brand building, showcasing the multi-year effort to reposition and strengthen the Children's Minnesota brand.

Additional resources: 

• Hillery Smith Shay on LinkedIn
• Children’s Minnesota’s Website
• Josh Dougherty on LinkedIn
• Josh Dougherty’s speaking site
• A Brave New’s Website