CLEAR
Naming, Brand Personality, Messaging, Website Copy
Agency Partner
When I met the team we now call CLEAR, they were Pacific Alzheimer Research Foundation, or…PARF. There were a few things about their name that weren’t working. For one, it suggested that the BC-based organization was only focused on western Canada (not true). And then there was the acronym. In stakeholder surveys and interviews, I heard the same thing over and over: “It sounds like barf.” Not ideal. So a new name was in order, and I was delighted to be the strategist in charge of helping them find the right one. In addition to their name, I collaborated with the now-CLEAR team on a new brand personality, plus core messaging and copy for their new website. Alzheimer and dementia prevention and treatment are causes close to my heart, so I couldn’t be prouder of what we created together.
A new name
Naming can take days or weeks, or it can take minutes or hours (the former is the norm). In the case of the organization formerly known as PARF, it only took one naming session to know that I had something: CLEAR. It spoke to the organization’s own clarity (e.g., on their mission and purpose) and on the sustained mental/cognitive clarity they want for sufferers and would-be sufferers of ALZ, as well as the clarity they seek through research. As we naming strategists say, CLEAR had legs.
CLEAR is what I call a reverse-engineered acronym. During our naming workshop the then-PARF team gave me the criteria for their name: they wanted it to communicate a location (Canada), Alzheimer and/or dementia, and research. Already we were looking at a long name, which inevitably gets shortened into an acronym. So I wanted an acronym that itself said something—that was a strong name in and of itself.
That led me to a few viable options—like AHEAD and NEAR—but once I stumbled upon CLEAR, it quickly became the frontrunner. It took a couple more sessions to “find” the long-form version: Canadians for Leading Edge Alzheimer Research. I presented a couple dozen options, but I was delighted when the team formerly known as PARF agreed that CLEAR was the clear winner.
Brand Story
We’re CLEAR, a Canadian nonprofit organization on a mission to eradicate all forms of dementia, including Alzheimer Disease, by funding research towards a cure. Our name stands for Canadians for Leading Edge Alzheimer Research, because that’s exactly what we are. Like most of our supporters, we’re motivated by lived experience—by memories of moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas, siblings and friends lost to these awful diseases.
Because if someone you love has experienced Alzheimer Disease or another form of dementia, you know: it’s devastating—for the person afflicted, for their family and friends, for their caregivers, and for society at large.
Unless we act fast, the distress caused by dementia will only get worse. Canada’s oldest Baby Boomers, now in their 70s, are already at heightened risk of developing dementia. And in the next ten years, that risk will skyrocket. A tidal wave of dementia diagnoses is coming.
The question, then: would we rather spend hundreds of millions to understand and ultimately eradicate Alzheimer Disease and other dementias, or spend billions of dollars responding to the healthcare needs of those with dementia?
To us, the answer is clear. The very best way to spare future generations the devastation of dementia is to get rid of it once and for all. And the only way to do that is through research.
To maximize the impact of every dollar donated to CLEAR, we direct 100% of the funds raised to promising scientific research into the cause, prevention, and treatment of Alzheimer Disease and other dementias—with the ultimate goal of discovering a cure. We’re the only charitable organization in Canada whose singular purpose is to fund research in pursuit of a cure to Alzheimer Disease.
Our Board of Directors benefits from the wisdom of some of our country’s preeminent dementia researchers. We engage objective arms-length experts who assess the quality of the research being done in labs across the country to determine which has the greatest potential impact. Though CLEAR is Vancouver-based, we’re not tied to any particular institution, which means we can fund the most promising research, wherever it happens to be.
The research we fund could lead to the breakthrough the world has been waiting for. Or it could become a missing piece in other research—a catalyst to another lab’s groundbreaking discovery, here in Canada or somewhere else in the world. In the global fight against this unforgiving disease, we’re all in this together.
We can win this fight—but we need your help. Now.
