Changing a company's logo is one thing. Changing the name of a public company is another beast to tackle.
When Pure Storage became Everpure earlier this year, the change reflected years of business evolution beyond enterprise storage—the systems organizations use to store and manage large volumes of business data—and into broader data platform offerings, such as holistic data management, intelligence and AI orchestration platforms. But before the new name could be introduced to customers and investors, the company had to prepare for another audience first: its employees.
According to Lynn Lucas, CMO at Everpure, that meant treating the rollout as an internal communications effort that extended far beyond launch day.
The company wanted employees to understand the strategy behind the new identity before introducing it externally. As Lucas put it, "They were our first brand ambassadors that day.”
The process took more than a year and ultimately involved over 100 employees across marketing, communications, HR, finance and legal. Throughout the rollout, the focus remained on helping employees understand not just what was changing, but why.
Start with the Business Strategy
Lucas says the first priority made sure employees understood the business rationale behind the new identity.
"Our company focuses on delivering storage and data platforms to B2B organizations," she says. "We have been well on our way to adding to our capabilities over the last several years to extend into data platforms. And our brand was not keeping up."
Leadership positioned the change as the next step in the company's evolution rather than a cosmetic redesign.
"We worked very closely with the CEO and founder to examine moving away from having 'storage' in our name as part of that brand evolution," Lucas says.
That message became the foundation for the company's internal communications.
Give Employees the Language to Explain the Change
Beyond explaining the strategy, the communications team wanted employees to feel comfortable talking about the new brand with customers, friends and professional contacts.
Lucas says HR created a brief learning module to help employees understand the new positioning.
"Our HR team did a short 12-minute learning module so that every employee could learn in 12 minutes, 'What's the new soundbite about "Why Everpure?"'"
The team even encouraged employees to consider how they would explain the rebrand in everyday conversations, providing simple messaging they could use outside the office.
Make Launch Day Participatory
Rather than treating launch day as a single announcement, Everpure built opportunities for employees around the world to participate.
Lucas says the company shipped new banners to each of its offices and coordinated a global reveal.
"We wanted on day one every office to have a new banner," she says. Employees filmed themselves opening the packages, and shared the videos internally through Slack.
The rollout also extended to employees' own social channels.
"We gave them options, tips and tricks for how they could show their pride," Lucas says.
Some employees shared videos. Others posted photos or messages about the new brand. Company executives participated as well.
"They were our first brand ambassadors that day," Lucas says.
Continue Communicating After Launch
Lucas notes the communications effort didn't end once the new name was unveiled.
"Every month we are taking time to reinforce why we did the rebrand," she says.
That reinforcement continues through company meetings, employee events and ongoing conversations about the business strategy behind the name change.
For Lucas, that sustained communication helps employees become credible ambassadors for the brand over time rather than simply participants in a launch event.
As organizations navigate increasingly complex transformations, communications leaders are often responsible for helping employees make sense of those changes. Everpure's experience suggests that successful internal communications begin long before launch day and continue long after the announcement.
[Editor’s note: Another version of this interview, which features information on B2B marketing, ran in our sister publication, “Chief Marketer.” Read more here.]