emh Group
Communications strategy and anniversary film
emh group is a major regional housing and care provider based in Leicestershire. It owns and manages more than 20,000 homes across the East Midlands and provides care and support for hundreds of older people and those with disabilities.
We’ve worked with emh for more than a decade, both as a retained public relations agency and in conducting regular stakeholder perception surveys. The group asked us to review and refresh its brand positioning, with particular emphasis on making more of its exceptional diversity and breadth of services.
We held dozens of 1:1 conversations with staff, customers and board members, plus workshops and surveys with partners and stakeholders to shape a new set of core messages. This resulted in a streamlined ‘one emh’ positioning and a simplified brand structure tightly focused the group’s mission to improve opportunities for people through housing and care. From this, we developed a new communications strategy with a well-honed messaging framework for customers, staff and stakeholders.
This project coincided with emh’s 75th anniversary, so we filmed interviews more than a dozen key partners, from MPs to local authorities, trade bodies and community groups, to record their experiences of working with the group. Completed entirely online because of the COVID restrictions in place at the time, this became a focal point for the organisation’s events to mark its 75 years.
Contributors highlighted the importance of emh’s values, social purpose, community roots and collaboration in helping to tackle homelessness, boost skills and employment, build new homes, promote opportunities for young people and respond to the growing challenge of dementia.