In an age where people are living longer but not necessarily better, how do we create systems by which people can more proactively and effectively manage their health?

An innovative answer to this question comes to market from Thyme, which is a new venture from the Your Doctor Group, an entrepreneurial enterprise with a long track record of disruption in the UK’s private health sector. The company’s brief to Luxury Branding was to help establish a medical concierge membership offering with preventative medicine at its core.

During an extensive Discovery stage, we uncovered seven issues of concern – presented to the client as symptoms – culminating in a diagnosis of ‘opportunitis’. Our treatment plan advised Your Doctor to consolidate a fragmented wellness market around a concept we termed ‘Healthspan Planning’. We also advised the team to expand its target market from a pure luxury focus to a broader premium proposition.

On this basis, we defined a differentiating brand strategy for the new business concept, building upon a vision of a world ‘where people flourish furthermore’ and a purpose of ‘reforming health-related quality of life (HRQOL)’. All brand elements, including our generative idea of ‘Bespoke Health Planning’, were codified in a Brand Canvas and narrated in a persuasive manifesto concluding with the enticing call to action to ‘Live Well’.

Next, we expressed the proposition in an original brand name and category-defying visual identity. Having mined four naming territories, we selected Thyme as the moniker because of its physical and spiritual roots in the natural world. Thyme also offers a valuable homonym for ‘Time’ and longevity. The elongated Y at the heart of the word mark suggests the extension of time, while the colour palette eschews the typical visual codes of the medical and health industries.

In parallel, we developed a lexicon for the brand in which we refer to customers as Clients, physicians as Personal Health Planners, and the club-like premises where the service is delivered are Thyme Spaces. Luxury Branding also provided the concept direction for the interior design of these environments, which came to life first at Thyme’s inaugural Space located at 10 St. James’s Street, London SW1.

Finally, we proposed a bold creative direction for brand photography and a website for the new business. We conceived Faces of Thyme as a series of striking black-and-white portraits depicting various personal perspectives which explore the subject of lives Lived Well.

Thyme launched in November 2022.