Emeritus Senior Living Awarded 2009 Assisted Living of America’s (ALFA) “Best of the Best” Award

Business Wire, June 02, 2009

National Senior Living Company Receives Recognition for Brand Campaign

SEATTLE -- Emeritus Senior Living was bestowed the Assisted Living Federation of America’s (ALFA) honorable 2009 “Best of the Best” award for their sales and marketing best practice as the company launched its new brand identity. ALFA recognized the company’s strong partnership between human resources and marketing in identifying that a company’s brand identity must reflect the company’s culture and achieve employee buy-in to successfully build public recognition of the brand.

The company established its new brand identity “Our Family is Committed to Yours” by asking employees what they wanted the public to think of when they hear the brand name, Emeritus Senior Living. Through a company-wide contest, employees consistently associated Emeritus with the words: family and commitment. Emeritus also created its seven “Family Values” in order to help employees identify behaviors to live by that reflect the company’s new brand promise. The company incorporated the new brand in all employee and customer related touch points and also reinforces this new culture through new employee recognition programs. The company has also begun changing the names of all of its communities nationwide to incorporate the Emeritus name.

“We are proud of the Emeritus Senior Living name,” says Jayne Sallerson, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Emeritus Senior Living. “All across the country, Emeritus is known for its commitment to making a positive difference in the lives of the people it serves by fostering an atmosphere of family and community among its staff and residents. The Emeritus brand name reflects our ideals of respect, community, teamwork and value.”

“We are honored to receive ALFA’s recognition of our sales and marketing best practices for our new brand identity. Our marketing and human resources teams understood that the community employees who work directly with our residents on a day-to-day basis needed to “operationalize” our company’s new Mission, Vision and Family Values in order to successfully launch our brand promise to our residents and families,” said Granger Cobb, President and Co-CEO.

For more information on Emeritus Senior Living, please contact Liberty Stansberry, Vice President of Human Resources at (800) 429-4828.

ABOUT THE COMPANY

Emeritus Corporation is a national provider of assisted living and Alzheimer’s and related dementia care services to seniors. Emeritus is one of the largest and most experienced operators of freestanding assisted living communities located throughout the United States. These communities provide a residential housing alternative for senior citizens who need assistance with the activities of daily living, with an emphasis on personal care services, which provides support to the residents in the aging process. Emeritus currently operates 309 communities in 36 states representing capacity for approximately 27,200 units and approximately 32,400 residents. Our common stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol ESC, and our home page can be found on the Internet at www.emeritus.com.

ABOUT THE ASSISTED LIVING FEDERATION OF AMERICA

ALFA is the largest national association exclusively dedicated to professionally managed assisted living communities for seniors. ALFA serves as the voice for senior living and advocates for informed choice, quality care, and accessibility for all Americans needing assistance with long-term care. Go to www.alfa.org for more information.