Simplifying the journey to support

Medicare is one of the country’s most recognisable healthcare brands, recognised as part of accessing free and quality health care. Our role was to help Medicare extend into the mental health space in a way that felt credible, calm and supportive, while remaining unmistakably Medicare.

We understood that the mental health landscape is fragmented and hard to navigate, especially when someone is feeling stressed or overwhelmed. That made it critical that we established a single, national beacon for mental health services instead of adding more noise to the category. Instead of developing individual branding for a set of services, we forged one overarching entity.

We were building a national brand, but it still had to resonate and adapt for communities. Making the services feel contextual was hugely important to feeling inclusive, safe and accessible. The brand needed to be nationally cohesive, but with the ability to speak ‘local’.

Strategy grounded in empathy

We put people with lived experience at the centre of our process. Through engagement with more than 1,000 Australians over more than a year, paying special attention to First Nations and Culturally and Linguistically Diverse communities, we built up a picture of what their challenges feel like and how Medicare Mental Health could signal the support they need.

We positioned the brand to reflect how the service supports people in the moment, helps them transition to calm in the next, and walks alongside them step by step. The brand needed to be more about clarity in the storm and feeling accessible to everyone over ‘fixing the problem’.

Showing a new side of Medicare

We started with the most recognisable parts of the Medicare brand, the logo and green, and evolved from there.

Our goal was to create a gentle calming tone, highlighting the human-centred mental health care available through Medicare. The new identity leans into more emotive, organic and calming visual cues that feel different to a more traditional clinical visual language used by Medicare. Through testing, we validated that the visuals were both soothing and recognisably Medicare.

Clear and compassionate messaging was essential. We worked closely with the Department and our communications partner Fenton to define messages that would cut through stigma, confusion, and misinformation – emphasising that the services were free, for anyone and safe.

The visual and verbal frameworks built in local images, art and language to make the brand feel more connected to communities.

The outcome

Medicare Mental Health services are being rolled out and expanded. Medicare Mental Health Centres and Kids Hubs are increasingly available across the country. Close to 200,000 people are expected to access the Mental Health Check In service every year by 2029. With each new channel, location or service that becomes available, the footprint of the brand becomes stronger - and the public is beginning to recognise that they can turn to one place consistently when they are seeking support for their mental health.

Medicare Mental Health Centres

The Centres have the most physical presence. Localising the imagery and language used was highly important. We helped to implement the brand across the first centres and supported the rest of the network with comprehensive guidance.

Medicare Mental Health Kids Hubs

Kids Hubs needed to focus on young children and families. We worked on naming the service, helping it to fit into child health clinics. We gave it brighter colours, new heading font and relevant imagery.

Medicare Mental Health Check In

We extended the brand’s toolkit to support the digital-first delivery of the service. The graphic device, colour palette and iconography suite reflects the practical, guided nature of low-intensity cognitive behavioural therapy.