Activating the brand inside out.

The importance of empowering teams through Ernest’s internal brand launch.

Article 3 in a 4-part series about Ernest’s rebrand 

For a company to succeed, the alignment between brand and culture has to run through the entire organization and include all employees (called “E-Teamers” within the walls of Ernest). Everyone across every role, level, and location needs to understand and believe in the brand, what it means for the company, and what it means for them personally. To be advocates for Ernest, employees need to feel empowered by the brand in their day-to-day lives—whether that’s interacting with clients, collaborating with colleagues, or taking part in their local communities. 
 
Ernest took this to heart when working with Liquid to design a strategic and impactful internal brand launch. Every E-teamer needed to understand the new brand and how to bring it to life in their work. To build this understanding, Liquid created content, experiences, and tools built specifically for Ernest employees.

Setting the groundwork for a brand-driven culture.

Over the past 15 years, Ernest has invested heavily in a brand-driven culture. They created forward-thinking initiatives like their Learning and Development program, which advances Ernest’s packaging and customer service expertise while emphasizing Ernest’s purpose and values. They also have an Ernest Brand Council, a volunteer group of people from multiple divisions who use the brand as a lens to weigh in on strategic decision-making. 
 
Behind the scenes, we worked with Ernest to build a Culture Platform to provide guidance on shaping a workplace culture to serve the Ernest brand. With an ever-changing talent landscape, the platform serves as the North Star for Ernest’s culture and how employees work together toward common goals.  
 
The Ernest Brand Council, Culture platform, Career campaigns, Annual “Ernies” award show and other investments in a brand-driven culture with Liquid meant that Ernest had a strong foundation to inform, educate, and excite E-Teamers about the new brand.

Launch day: Lights, camera, action!

Companies only get one opportunity to launch internally, and Liquid put in the leg work to seamlessly execute for Ernest. 

After such a massive overhaul of the Ernest brand, we had to figure out how to launch it internally with the same amount of impact. It was important to have people’s full attention to explain the system. With an intentional and in-depth understanding of how the system is built and why, employees can genuinely buy into the brand. 

First, we unveiled the new brand and system to Ernest’s 70+ managers, ensuring a solid understanding so that they could answer questions and provide encouragement to their teams. Then, we gave an important role to play with their teams for the launch—each level of leader had their own playbook of what they were going to do pre-launch, day of launch, and post-launch. Then we introduced them to the full external launch campaign and its quirky mascot, Dudley Du-Not.

Dudley is a three-day-old donut and Ernest Cautionary Tale Coordinator who reminds everyone to never settle for the same old crusty solutions, and always say “no” to the status quo. He’s seen sub-par packaging companies who settle for the same old same old, but Dudley knows better than anyone what it’s like to go stale. 

We launched Dudley and the rest of the internal campaign during an all-company meeting in January of 2024, after previously releasing an internal teaser campaign. The meeting started the same as many had in the past: Ernest’s CEO, Tim Wilson, speaking from a conference room on Zoom to all 14 division offices. Then, the meeting took a turn and Tim was magically captured into TV land and onto a talk show set for The Brand Show to unveil the new brand and future go-to-market activities. The set was reminiscent of late-night shows like David Letterman and Johnny Carson, with a live audience adding energy to the atmosphere. Tim, Brian Porter the EVP of Client Relations, and Scott Gardner, Liquid CEO and Ernest CMO donning an orange suit, were involved in a playful and informative interview about the new brand, with other Ernest leaders and key E-Teamers coming in to play brand-related games and appear in fun features. 

We also built a “Behind the Brand” explainer video to follow The Brand Show in a slightly more serious tone. It provided background information on the impetus for the rebrand, the rationale behind certain changes, and information on how it would affect day-to-day operations. Both videos will be used for onboarding new E-Teamers going forward.

Measuring success and making engagement easy.

Over the next several years, we’ll measure impact through a survey that gauges different teams’ understanding, ability to embrace, and embodiment of the brand. This comes from surveying E-Teamers immediately after launch and then across longer increments (quarterly or semi-annually). From the surveys, we’ll uncover insights that help guide the creation of new brand tools, drive training for specific teams, and continue to memorialize the brand in the hearts and minds of employees over time.
 
We’re also using social media to measure internal engagement with the launch. To make promoting the new brand easy, we built a tool called the Social Sharing Hub.

Employees can post creative branded content onto their social accounts with a single click, or give it their own spin before posting. We’ve seen the tool get good traction for posts on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn. 
 
It’s always exciting to see which experiences leave a lasting impression on employees and which elements “stick.” For example, we had high hopes for Ernest’s new mascot, Dudley Du-Not, to help spread the word about Ernest’s new brand in the market with clients and prospects. However, we could not have imagined E-Teamers’ love for Dudley! He’s quickly become part of their vernacular and is being featured and tagged on employees’ social media everywhere from the office to local basketball games. He even has his own bobblehead that each employee received on launch day.

Internal launches can be tricky. To get a diverse group of individuals to connect with a new brand isn’t something that can be done in an email. But great brands are created with employees front and center, and with a strategic launch, the right tools, and an entire organization that’s rallying behind the brand, the benefits can be exponential. For Ernest, the investment is paying off.

Check out Article Four of the series to read about how we introduced the new brand to the world through integrated marketing channels and customer interactions.