Non- Profit Rebrand: Planned Parenthood

Project Synopsis

While researching a non-profit that underwent a rebrand due to a historical moment, I chose Planned Parenthood. Researching how Planned Parenthood rebranded in recent years gave me the chance to explore strengths and weaknesses and suggest recommendations.

Introduction

With the change in politics over the past decade, and the polarizing rise of the Trump-era, women’s reproductive health has been challenged and threatened at every corner. These views began creating an even larger divide among political parties than before. With this change Planned Parenthood was targeted for one of its services, which is abortions. There is a great number of people in this country that do not agree with abortion, but this change in politics began attacking this nonprofit as if that was the only thing it stood for. Planned Parenthood provides its patients, male and female, with numerous services that deal with reproductive health and also serves as an educational source for parents, young adults, or young people or need to better educate themselves or their loved ones on their reproductive health.

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Background

Planned Parenthood is a nonprofit that works to educate and provide health care to every person regardless of race, gender, and socio-economic status. In the past few decades, Planned Parenthood’s reputation has been under fire because the nonprofit offers abortion services to clients. This polarizing service has overshadowed all of the good the company provides and almost criminalized the nonprofit, because of this Planned Parenthood has undergone a rebrand to show the public there is more to the brand. In this rebrand, Planned parenthood had to take the stance of, “reproductive health is health care,” in order to shy away from strong opinions about abortions and avoid being defunded (Barry-Jester, 2019). Over this past decade, the rise of the Trump-era led to an increase in disproval of abortion and even things like birth control and women’s safety exams which are all offered at Planned Parenthood. This has caused Planned Parenthood to receive massive amounts of hate from within the community making a rebrand necessary.

Planned Parenthood has been around for over 100 years; the nonprofit was established in 1916 with the mission to provide reproductive health care. Through this rebrand, the way Planned Parenthood has been able to shift the focus from being an “abortion clinic” to being a reproductive health clinic is being consistent in the messaging. This includes advertisements on social media, television, in print, keeping the message the same and constant so the public knows that the clinic offers more than just abortions is huge in shifting the public opinion.

The communication channels used in this rebrand were mainly through social media. Helping educate the public on the mission of Planned Parenthood but also offering classes like what is sexual harassment, birth control knowledge, and teaching parents how to talk to their kids about sex (Campaigns, 2021). Having these different initiatives helped with the rebrand because it allowed the public to see the different offerings of Planned Parenthood and not only see the company as an abortion clinic.

The explicit communication ethics for Planned Parenthood is contextual communication ethics. This is because there are different cultural standards and different approaches must be used. Because abortion is such a hot topic and so polarizing, Planned Parenthood had to communicate its message of reproductive health in a manner that would not be offensive and would not upset people. For the implicit communication ethic, Dialogic communication ethics was used because Planned Parenthood is such a huge topic. In the rebrand, the advertisements invited the audience into the conversation, even if it made them uncomfortable, one of the brand’s initiatives is to educate and that is what they were doing with these ads.

In this rebrand, Planned Parenthood is focusing on promoting education. Educating the public is their mission, and also on reproductive health in general. This rebrand has been successful because it has created traction with young people on social media and created a following behind it. By targeting the younger generations, Planned Parenthood will be able to achieve more of their goals because they are securing a large number of voters. This is important for the future of IMC because it shows how having a campaign through social media can create such a following and what a success it can end up being.

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Conclusion

While the rebrand has been successful, and many people have begun opening their eyes and seeing the full initiatives on Planned Parenthood, there is also a large number that will not be easily swayed. Creating educational initiatives to interact with the public and explain the mission of Planned Parenthood and also more about reproductive health have been crucial to the success of this rebrand. Working with schools and universities, Planned Parenthood was able to integrate into the educational system with its rebrand, continuing to target a younger audience and continuing to protect and promote education.

“Reproductive health is health care” is the slogan for the rebrand and the entire focus on Planned Parenthood. By sticking to the roots of the organization, the brand was able to remind citizens that there is more to the brand than just abortions and there is so many benefits the nonprofit has to offer.

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References:

Arnett, R. C., Fritz, J. M., & Bell, L. M. (2018). Communication ethics literacy: Dialogue & difference. Kendall Hunt Publishing Company.

Barry-Jester, S. U. L. A. A. M. T. (2019, April 17). With abortion services in the crosshairs, Planned Parenthood is reshaping its image. Will it work?Kaiser Health News. https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/16/planned-parenthood-reshaping-its-image-abortion-health-care/3483497002/

Campaigns. (2021). Planned Parenthood. https://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/newsroom/campaigns

Miller, D., Merrilees, B., & Yakimova, R. (2014). Corporate Rebranding: An Integrative Review of Major Enablers and Barriers to the Rebranding Process. International Journal of Management Reviews, 16(3), 265-289. https://doi-org.liblink.uncw.edu/10.1111/ijmr.12020

Rose, L. (2012, October 9). ROSE: Planned Parenthood's rebranding scheme. The Washington Times. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/oct/9/planned-parenthoods-rebranding-scheme/