MDLIVE Case Study | Partners + Napier

Health + Wellness

DRIVING
URGENT-ER CARE

Telehealth promised convenience.  
We helped MD Live own something bigger.

The Challenge

Waking an undifferentiated giant in telehealth

As consumers rapidly adopted telehealth during COVID-19, telehealth brands became increasingly interchangeable — all competing on the same promises of convenience, accessibility, and virtual care.

To continue growing, MDLIVE needed to evolve from “just another telehealth provider” into a brand people actively preferred.

Four different patterns that were designed for this campaign: a repeating stapler, a repeating child's dinosaur toy, a repeating house, and a repeating piggy bank.

The Wake Up

Healthcare can feel frictionless too

We uncovered a cultural truth accelerated by the pandemic: once consumers experience immediacy, there’s no going back. Across nearly every part of life — food delivery, entertainment, shopping, transportation — people, especially millennial parents, had become conditioned to expect faster, lower-friction experiences.

Healthcare was one of the last categories still failing to meet that expectation. That insight helped us reposition MDLIVE not against other telehealth brands, but against the real enemy: the slow, frustrating experience of urgent care.

The opportunity became clear: make MDLIVE feel less like a healthcare platform and more like a modern utility designed for the pace of real life.

The Stance + The Movement

Now. That’s Better.

We created a new brand platform centered on immediacy: “MDLIVE. Now. That’s Better.”

The work intentionally broke from the cold, clinical conventions dominating the telehealth category. Instead, we built a brand world that felt approachable, human, visually distinct, and culturally relevant — using humor and relatability to connect with consumers in a more modern way.

Instead of relying on constant product news to sustain relevance, we built the brand around evolving consumer tensions and behaviors — allowing MD Live to stay culturally connected even when consumers weren’t actively sick.

Most importantly, MDLIVE stopped behaving like another telehealth company and started acting like a modern consumer brand.

Screenshot of an MDLIVE Instagram post with watches that says, "Urgent-er care. Doctors live in minutes."

Screenshot of an MDLIVE Instagram post with beach umbrellas that says, "Sun's out. Doctor's in. Virtual care in minutes - anywhere."

Screenshot of an MDLIVE Instagram post with flowers that says, "allergies. alleviated. asap."

Screenshot of an MDLIVE Instagram post that says, "colds relieved rapidly."

Screenshot of an MDLIVE Instagram post that says, "put colds to bed, before bedtime."

Screenshot of an MDLIVE Instagram post that says, "tackle the flu before sunday kickoff."

The Pulse

Being different made all the difference

By moving MDLIVE beyond the telehealth category, we helped transform the brand from a pandemic utility into a long-term healthcare brand with enduring cultural relevance. The work delivered:

13-point lift

in brand awareness

3.7 M

new patients visits

45% drop

in cost per visit

Over the course of the partnership, the work also earned two Effie Awards and helped MDLIVE continue expanding into new audiences and platforms.