About the client
Covid Trials Canada is a not-for-profit initiative of Think Research, a Canadian health technology company, and its subsidiary Airmed Trials. This initiative brought together a team of medical leaders from across Canada to advise, guide and govern the research hub to help in development of Covid-19 vaccines.
Why Zync and Covid Trial Canada worked together
At the beginning of the pandemic, our team wanted to get involved and help in the fight against Covid-19. We put out a call through our channels to find an organization that needed help with their brand image, market presence and communication. After consideration of all the organizations we connected with, we decided that Covid Trials Canada would benefit greatly from Zync’s expertise.
How we developed the Covid Trial Canada brand
Our work started during the first lockdown, with no time to waste. Up to this point, Canada didn’t have a mechanism or hub that could bring leaders in research, science and healthcare together—or provide access to participants for new Covid-19 medical trials. Once Covid Trials Canada was formed, it needed a strong national brand, messaging and online platform to use as a central hub.
We began by meeting with their team to discuss key challenges, limited national coordination and time constraints in order to create a brand and messaging that would unify work being done across Canada.
Our positioning statement: “Help complete the circle” was both a call to action and a message of hope—signifying that by working together, we can defeat Covid-19. The messaging had to be direct, yet friendly and approachable. To keep the overall image simple, we focused on the diversity of people who make up Canada—faces of individuals representing all age groups and ethnicities were used, with an invitation to join a trial.
The visual brand had to be equally impactful and simple to understand. Zync’s creative team used the letter “T” from Trials to form the letter “C” representing Covid and Canada. By combining these two letterforms we were able to create an icon that looks like a simplified version of the Covid-19 molecule, making it instantly recognizable. Red was used to further reinforce the idea that this a national organization, an important message of unity during these challenging times.
The brand was approved unanimously, allowing us to then focus on rolling out key brand components and messaging. A website—covidtrials.ca—was the most important part of the strategy, so our team started by mapping out its content and design. We aimed to achieve a balance between technical information for health leaders and plain language calls to action for Canadians volunteering for Covid trials.
Our team developed additional brand elements to help launch the new platform and build brand awareness. A series of posters and other communication and awareness pieces were created, all focused on the same important message: “Help complete the circle. Join a trial.”
Final outcome
The brand, website and all other materials were very well received within the healthcare community and by the general public. Our work enabled the Covid Trials Canada team to deliver a strong platform in a very short time period—uniting Canada in its efforts to help end Covid-19.
