Strategy

Velo’s Consultancy team, appointed to lead this phase, started with evidence, not design. The research programme brought together quantitative and qualitative insight from across the healthcare market – 51 quantitative supplier surveys, 18 senior executive interviews and 92 nominated stakeholders across 65 participating organisations.

Participants included buyers, influencers and senior decision-makers from major organisations across UK healthcare, pharmaceuticals and medical technology.

Alongside this external research, Velo’s Consultancy team worked extensively with teams throughout Wilmington. Leadership interviews, workshops, surveys, strategy reviews, customer analysis, NPS studies and market assessment exercises brought together perspectives from product specialists, commercial teams, senior leadership and board-level stakeholders.

The aim was to understand what customers genuinely valued rather than simply preserving the structure the organisation had inherited.

The research crystallised one powerful idea:  No one understands the NHS better. Customers were not simply buying journalism, events, data or consultancy. Across the portfolio, the common value was HSJ’s depth of understanding of the NHS and the wider healthcare ecosystem.

Rather than adding another brand to an already complex portfolio, Velo’s Consultancy team recommended simplification. HSJ became the umbrella, with a clearer architecture bringing specialist capabilities together beneath the strength and recognition of the master brand. The evidence bank confirms the introduction of dedicated Advisory and Market Intelligence propositions to extend perceptions of HSJ beyond journalism and commentary.

Each proposition could address a distinct customer need while contributing to a single, coherent HSJ story.

Creative

With the strategy and master-brand architecture defined by Velo’s Consultancy team, Velo took on the challenge of bringing it to life: signalling meaningful change without losing the recognition and trust HSJ had built over decades.

Rather than abandoning the brand’s heritage, Velo evolved it.

Historical HSJ fonts and colours were retained to maintain continuity while a new visual system created greater flexibility across an expanded portfolio. A continuous-line illustration style was developed to connect different healthcare environments and reinforce the idea of an interconnected healthcare ecosystem.

The creative principles included:

• – Connecting the healthcare ecosystem: continuous-line illustrations created a visual link between different settings, services and audiences.
• – Keeping healthcare outcomes at the centre: imagery reflected the shared purpose connecting NHS leaders and healthcare suppliers.
• – Creating an inclusive visual canvas: more abstract compositions allowed different audiences to recognise their own world within the brand.
• – Respecting HSJ’s heritage: established fonts and colours provided familiarity while the wider identity evolved around them.
• – One family, distinct propositions: sub-brands were given enough differentiation to communicate their individual roles without weakening the master HSJ brand.

The result was not simply a refreshed appearance. It was a visual expression of the new organisational strategy, and one ready for the in-house team to adopt, take on and work with.