HCA West Florida Division
The advantages of size, the benefits of small
Focus:
Employer Brand Transformation & Value Strategy Development
Key Elements:
Decision-Dynamics Research, Creative Direction, Content Strategy, UX Design, Career Site Reinvention, Storytelling.
The Challenge
HCA West Florida Division operated 33 hospitals across the region — but you'd never know they were connected. Each facility ran under its own name, its own identity, its own recruiting presence. The result was a system competing against itself for nurses and clinicians, with no shared brand voice and no way to signal what made the whole greater than the sum of its parts.
The opportunity was hiding in plain sight. HCA WFD offered something neither large academic medical centers nor small independent hospitals could match: the stability, advancement potential, and benefits of a major health system, delivered through community-scale hospitals where nurses actually knew their patients and their colleagues. Nobody was saying that. Nobody was even trying.
Finding the Insight
Research included a focus group held at a major nursing conference — a deliberate choice to meet clinicians where they were already thinking about their careers. What came back wasn't surprising in hindsight, but it was clarifying. Nurses weren't choosing between hospitals based on prestige or pay scales alone. They were choosing based on possibility. The sense that a place had more to offer — more paths, more support, more room to grow — was the signal that moved them.
That word kept surfacing. More.
The Strategy
The positioning became More Career Choices — and the creative system was built to make "more" mean something specific every time it appeared. The architecture allowed individual facilities to retain their local identity while connecting to something larger. HaveMore. SeeMore. LoveMore. JoinMore. FindMore. Each execution could speak to a different audience, a different moment, a different motivation — while the "More" platform held everything together.
The other strategic problem was structural: HCA WFD acquired hospitals regularly, and facilities occasionally left the network. A brand element tied to a fixed number would be obsolete within months. The solution was a "33 Hospitals Strong" lockup — a signature badge that could be updated as the network changed without disrupting the rest of the system. It became both a proof point and a rallying signal. Even when a campaign looked and felt like it came from a local community hospital, that badge made the connection to something bigger.
What We Built
The engagement covered the full range: brand strategy and positioning, a comprehensive brand guide, an image library, and a complete campaign system spanning traditional and digital media. Job descriptions were rewritten as brand expressions — not lists of requirements, but invitations that reflected what it actually felt like to work there. Event materials brought the brand into recruiting conferences and career fairs through banner stands, back walls, collateral, and branded touchpoints designed to hold their own in a crowded room.
The Result
HCA West Florida didn't share campaign metrics. They did something that speaks louder: they kept coming back. The engagement that began with brand strategy expanded into an ongoing relationship that has lasted to the present day, with the platform growing to absorb new facilities, new channels, and new recruiting challenges as they emerged. In an industry where vendors cycle in and out with every budget season, that kind of sustained trust is the result. The work earned it.