ADCES (formerly AADE)

The American Association of Diabetes Educators (AADE), renamed to The Association of Diabetes Care & Education Specialists (ADCES), is a multidisciplinary membership organization for healthcare professionals who specialize in teaching patients and caregivers about diabetes.

The AADEs Annual Meeting is the associations most valuable brand asset in addition to serving as one of its most visible and engaging member benefits.


Working in consultation with Minding Your Business, ID participated in a comprehensive assessment of the AADE’s annual meeting in order to better understand each member segments unique expectations for the annual meeting and help to develop a strategic roadmap for the AADEs growth.

The team kicked the project off with a comprehensive membership survey to the AADE’s 12,000 members. The goal of the survey was to understand members’ satisfaction with the annual meeting and to identify methods to fulfill the AADEs value proposition and increase member attendance at the annual meeting.


We started with a complete rewrite of the AADE’s Mission, Vision and Values statements to more readily appeal to the association’s value proposition of teaching the country’s best diabetes healthcare educators and providers.

A critical component of the annual meeting branding included the creation of a brand tonality strategy for the associations marketing and communications team that could speak to a 4 unique sub-segments of the AADE membership, including nurses, dietitians, pharmacists and physicians. ID then drafted value proposition statements for each one of these 4 members segments – appealing to each segments unique needs.


Once research was complete, ID art directed the creation of a dynamic new visual brand identity – one that reflected the diversity of its members and the vibrant energy members brought to their occupation. We also crafted a new meeting tagline aligned with the excitement members felt when attending the annual meeting. Additional we helped art direct advertising, communications and environmental graphics to help market the association’s annual meeting.


To increase conversion, and maximize the AADEs resources, the team developed a registration microsite to allow members an easy access portal to register and learn more about the sessions and speakers that interested them the most, in addition to registering for continuing education credit.


ID art directed event marketing and advertising in related journals, as well as onsite environmental graphics to increase excitement and anticipation for the meeting.