Case Study: Northwell Health builds a powerful sonic brand with Proper Villains

Northwell Health creates a sonic brand from 70 custom instruments with Proper Villains

Northwell Health, New York's largest health system, faced the challenge of creating a distinctive sonic identity that could represent its incredibly diverse culture and 105,000 employees. The existing stock music used in healthcare was either ignored or disliked by audiences, so a traditional solution would be rejected. The vendor, Proper Villains, was tasked with developing a sonic brand that was authentically of Northwell, not just for it.

Proper Villains built a sonic identity system by recording Northwell employees' voices and transforming them into a library of 70 proprietary musical instruments that exist nowhere else. This created a unique sound that could not be replicated by any other organization. The result was a comprehensive system including a sonic logo and a brand anthem. Within a year, the sonic logo achieved parity with the visual logo across all media, and the anthem became synonymous with the Northwell brand, making it the first major healthcare provider with a sonic brand of this depth.

Northwell Health