The California Health Benefit Exchange Board introduced its new brand name and logo yesterday. Covered California will become the public face of the California Exchange going forward. Actually, the colors and tag line are still undergoing final tweaking, with the marketing of the brand to begin in earnest in January, 2013. Ogilvy PR is handling the campaign.

The process of developing the name and logo has been several months in the making, and contenders have undergone intensive discussion and focus group testing . With support from Ogilvy PR the Exchange reviewed hundreds of names, including many submitted by consumers and stakeholders from across California. At the September Board meeting staff presented the top four names that rose from Name/Tagline focus group testing: Covered California, Eureka, CaliHealth, and Ursa. Based on serious concerns about being able to trademark CaliHealth and language translation concerns regarding Ursa, each of these were removed from consideration.

In focus groups, 65% of participants favored Covered California. In logo testing, The inverted double “C”s logo was the favorite for the majority of the respondents. Many observed that it felt “safe” and protected, especially respondents with families.

Week of October 30th: • Legal trademark search results review • Final internal revisions/reviews to chosen Logo design and additional tagline exploration Week of November 5th: • Review of revised Logo/Tagline • Final legal review/approval of Logo and Tagline Week of November 12th: • Final Name, Logo, tagline and domain revealed • Trademarking process: TBD