What vet practices can learn from CVS' new signage rollout
I’ve been obsessed with every aspect of veterinary marketing ever since I first entered the industry in 2013.
But people who know me will have heard me say that there are two particular elements of my job that really make me happy.
The buzz of pressing send on a print run of marketing collateral, and the satisfying smell of fresh ink when you get your hands on it.
And signage.
I’m absolutely besotted with signage and I think about it on a daily basis. It’s no exaggeration to say that I treat every trip out of the house as CPD, picking up tips and tricks from how other businesses sell themselves with their shop fronts.
As bricks and mortar businesses serving a defined local area, it’s such an important element of how we market ourselves and if we get it right it’s a 24/7 advertisement for our practice.
Signage we've designed
.jpg)
%20(1)_edited.png)
.jpg)
.avif)
That’s why I was so engrossed by CVS’ recent reveal of their new branding and how they’re applying it to their practices.
Now, I’m absolutely not here to dump on other people’s work – marketing is hard! There are things that they’ve done well. However, in the process, they’ve broken so many of my golden rules, and it could have been so much better.
And just to be clear, this isn’t a job application. There’s zero chance of Practice Made Purrfect collaborating with CVS.
So I think an honest critique would be a good learning experience for everyone – myself and my team, you the reader, our network of practices and, who knows, maybe the marketing team at CVS too.
As always, my mission is to inspire us all to make sure the next project is even better than the last.
What's been done well
Let’s start with some positivity. And the first and most basic compliment to pay CVS is that they’ve got the job done.
CVS wouldn’t have wanted to do this. It’s a reaction to the CMA investigation, and their directive to make it clear who owns veterinary practices.
But still, ideas are easy – execution is where most things fall down. So let’s give people credit for turning the new brand into something concrete. This will have taken hours and hours of hard graft to implement.
The next thing to say is you can see exactly why they’ve designed the signage as they have. It’s simple and easy to replicate at scale. Now we’ll come back to this point from a different angle, but it’s impossible to deny that they had an objective here, and they’ve hit it.
The next thing to say is you can see exactly why they’ve designed the signage as they have. It’s simple and easy to replicate at scale. Now we’ll come back to this point from a different angle, but it’s impossible to deny that they had an objective here, and they’ve hit it.
And a couple of specifics that we approve of.
The blue is a striking colour – it’s different to any of the other vet groups, and it’s consistently used across the website and practice.
More than this, they’ve followed our Ronseal rule of making it clear that the business they’re advertising does exactly what it says on the tin. They’ve highlighted “Veterinary Surgery” clearly in the new signage, leaving prospective clients in no doubt to what they’re offering.
Traditionally, many practices lead on the partner's name, with “vets” only in tiny writing underneath, and local people are left guessing if the business is a financial advisor, funeral director or insurance broker.
And a couple of specifics that we approve of.
The blue is a striking colour – it’s different to any of the other vet groups, and it’s consistently used across the website and practice.
More than this, they’ve followed my Ronseal rule of making it clear that the business they’re advertising does exactly what it says on the tin. They’ve highlighted “Veterinary Centre” clearly in the new signage, leaving prospective clients in no doubt to what they’re offering.
Traditionally, many practices lead on the partner's name, with “vets” only in tiny writing underneath, and local people are left guessing if the business is a financial advisor, funeral director or insurance broker.
What we'd do differently
Let’s jump straight back into our point above about how simple the design is.
While we can see why the decision has been made to do it this way, we think it’s the wrong decision. And we have more than one argument against it.
First of all, there’s no personality here. No character. It looks exactly like what it is – signage designed to be cookie-cutter applied to any practice CVS happens to own.
The stock images of pets are so generic. They add nothing but also take up a massive amount of real estate.
There are also vast areas of the signage left blank – swathes of block blue, doing nothing.
Why not advertise the CVS Healthy Pet Club? Why not use window space to signpost car parking, services and offers? Why not engage local teams by asking them to provide pictures of their pets to bring something of the branch itself to its marketing?
Look – doing marketing for hundreds of practices from a central location is hard, and attempting to do bespoke signage for each would be even harder. But it’s hard to see an argument for how the best job has been done for each of these individual practices.
Because I’m a signage geek, I’ve noticed holes in the nuts and bolts of the delivery, too:
CVS' design
What we would have done differently
I’d have illuminated the signage. If you look at Acorn Veterinary Centre, it has fantastic visibility with high footfall on Alcester Road. However, the signage hasn’t been designed to exploit this. I'd have illuminated it with a trough light and added in an internally illuminated projecting sign to make it visible to traffic driving up and down the road at 30mph.
Acorn has a vast blank window where you can see the reverse of bare plasterboard in a consult room. I’d have used printed vinyl graphics to take advantage of this fantastic advertising space.
I’d have powder-coated the aluminium window frames in blue to smarten the front up, chemically cleaned the brick work and trimmed back weeds and foliage to smarten up the buildings to match the new signs.
I’d have added dog poo bins outside each practice, ready for the inevitable.
I like to display OOH arrangements on the outside of the building. While it’s not a specific RCVS Practice Standards Scheme requirement, I feel it’s an important part of ensuring clients are aware of what to do in an emergency.
Finally, I hope they haven't forgotten to continue the new branding through the interior of the practice, from front of house to the team areas, to give a consistent, joined-up experience.
Is there a feature wall in reception painted in the same colour? Have they used it as an opportunity to declutter the poster creep? Have they wrapped the reception desks in the branding? Have they created promotional spaces where they can display the Healthy Pet Club in the reception area and the consultation rooms?
Interior branding we’ve created for practices
.jpg)
Remember, this is all intended to be constructive and designed to explore what good signage looks like for vet practices. So, what can we learn?
How this can be applied in your vet practice
This is all a fantastic reminder of the advantage you have over CVS and similar practices.
You can be as creative as you like in your ideas with no-one in head office to answer to – and once you’re happy you can act on them with the focus purely on what’s best for your practice.
It also highlights the importance of your signage. Just look at the reaction to CVS’ work on social media. People care!
While getting it done is one form of victory, getting it right takes passion, time and years of experience.
That brings us to our final point in summary – you’re not alone.
There’s fantastic support available for practices these days, and for every new project you take on, whether that’s signage or something completely different, there are so many practice leaders who have been there before and would love to share their advice and experiences.
And of course, there’s me and my team at Practice Made Purrfect. We’re here to help, whether that’s a chat with me for some quick advice or working with my team to design and implement the signage as you build the practice of your dreams.
Vet practice marketing
To us it's personal
If you’re eager to improve your practice’s marketing but you’re unsure where to start, I’m taking on new clients for the next quarter! Book an initial discovery below!
