Boehringer Ingelheim has spruced up its image, rolling out new corporate branding that features its “first-ever brand claim” and a “standout color palette” dominated by different green hues. The new look is part of a push “to be more visible” and to “confidently engage” with external stakeholders.
For decades, Boehringer’s branding has centered on a stylized motif of the imperial palace of Ingelheim, depicted first in black and later in the blue that will be familiar to anyone who has followed the company this century. The motif has survived the rebranding exercise. The familiar blue hue has not, falling foul of Boehringer’s desire to slide across into the green section of the color spectrum.
Now, visitors to Boehringer’s website see the motif and company name displayed in a bright green on a dark green background. The bright and dark green colors repeat across Boehringer’s and materials, including on its first-ever brand claim: Life forward.
“Life forward expresses what we want to achieve and how we behave. We are life forward, and we take life forward,” Boehringer wrote in a statement about the new branding. “The heart of our brand is powered by unwavering optimism. In everything we do and say, we look positively into the future because we know we can shape and influence it for the better and want to inspire others to join us.”
That is the image Boehringer wants to present to “potential new employees, to future partners, to politicians who don’t know us, to healthcare professionals, in fact to everyone who takes an interest in us,” Médard Schoenmaeckers, head of corporate affairs at Boehringer, said in a statement. The new look “expresses that we are ready to be more visible,” according to Schoenmaeckers.
Boehringer has created a video that provides a closer look at its worldview. In the video, a woman talks over images of people hugging, researchers and healthcare professionals working and a partial ark of animals going about their lives. The voice-over mentions Boehringer’s 140-year history and how its “eyes are to the future” and its “optimism is unwavering.”
The German drugmaker has also created a pair of external campaign videos, one for its human health business and another for animal health. In the human health ad, we see an older man, smartly dressed and sporting a luxuriant mustache, fiddling with his bow tie. A voice-over introduces the man, Walter, and says he is about to go to a party after retreating from life for years because of a chronic disease.
Walter is now “ready to put himself out there again, thanks in part to medication made by Boehringer Ingelheim.” The video ends with Walter getting in a friend’s convertible to go to a party, after which the Boehringer motif and name and “Life forward” brand claim flash up in the company’s new green look.