| American Water Rebrand Leadership Team
American Water rebrand leadership talks with Anaezi Modu Laura Monica, SVP Corporate Communications and MaryBeth Vrees, Director of Marketing and Advertising, American Water > View full project rebrand showcase > Visit www.amwater.com American Water, through its subsidiaries, provides high-quality water and wastewater services to approximately 15 million people in approximately 1,600 communities in the United States and Ontario, Canada. What prompted your decision to rebrand American Water?LM: Two reasons. First, research we conducted at the beginning of the process showed about half of our customers didn’t know who owned their water company, and if they didn’t know who we were, how could we expect investors to know as we went into our initial public offering? And second, the communications materials we had – everything from brochures to the website to press releases – did not tell our story. We knew from that research that if we wanted to make an impact we needed to engage our audiences and help them understand who we are, what we do, how we add value to the communities we serve and why they should care. Where did you begin and what did the project entail?LM: We literally started over. Quantitative customer research and assessment of then-current communications materials were our first, and our most critical steps. After we saw the customer research, conducted our own internal research and analyzed the materials, we knew we needed to tell a story, engage our audiences, and put a face on the company. The vision came from our internal team -- we needed to develop an entirely new marketing strategy, voice and tone. Guided by research, a strategy was developed for every element – from the smallest (business card) to the largest (60-foot banner on the front of NYSE). To put a “face” on the company and demonstrate what American Water does, a photo strategy yielded 600+ dynamic photos of the company’s own pipes, plants, people and water, eliminating stock photos of rivers, waterfalls and unidentified tap water. For the same reason, the team wrote two critical phrases: “We are American Water” and “We care about water. It’s what we do.”  We worked hand-in-hand with a small group of dedicated vendors – our partners in this rebranding effort – to take the vision and goals and make them a reality: Creative Co-op, our advertising agency, listened to and assessed our needs, and re-defined the brand. They created a new series of logos for American Water and all of our subsidiaries, established new brand standards, and designed a new friendly, compelling style for all our collateral materials. creativeco-op.com SilverTech, Inc., our web vendor, translated the goals and new brand into a robust and dynamic, 4,500-page Web site that served our needs and the needs of our customers and business partners. We worked across the business to ensure our strategy was on target. silvertech.com RKM Research and Communications, our research partner, helped us conduct additional external research to make sure the brand would be effective with our customers. Once we got all approvals and an overwhelmingly positive response on the new brand from customers, we raced to complete all of the elements on our 1,500-line item list. rkm-research.com Tell me about the internal team that worked to create and launch the new brand.MBV: We had a very small, focused, talented group that worked extremely hard over the course of about 18 months planning, strategizing, creating and implementing the new brand. There were only three of us in the marketing department through that process. This is an extremely complex process, but by assembling a team of experienced professionals with vision and drive, and a small group of talented and dedicated vendors whom we trusted to keep our projects confidential, on budget, and on time, we delivered a highly effective product with tremendous value. It was a collaborative effort from start to finish, and each member of this team was critical to the successful completion of the campaign. You launched the new brand on the same day that American Water had its IPO (initial public offering) on the New York Stock Exchange. I don’t know of anyone else who has done that!LM: It was the logical choice to us – if we were relaunching this company, we should reshape, reposition and relaunch its identity on the same day. It was meant to communicate to our customers, the investment community, elected officials and employees that we are a strong, stable company serious about reclaiming our rightful position as industry leader. We did extensive research to find a model or a best practice out there to follow for rebranding, repositioning and relaunching a company on IPO day, but we found out that we seemed to be the only one, so we had to draw our own roadmap. What was the biggest obstacle you faced during the rebranding effort?LM: There were three major challenges. First, our German parent wanted to divest without spending funds it did not absolutely have to spend, so we had a tight budget. Second, because we had chosen to launch a new brand at IPO, it could not be shown to the public at large or even the vast majority of our employees until midnight on IPO day due to SEC quiet period restrictions. So outside of full transparency to a core group of employees, executives and vendors, it had to be kept confidential. In addition, we had no room for error – we had to be completely ready to launch on IPO day, not a moment before or after. And finally, the magnitude of the rebranding itself. Because no one else had done what we did, we had no way of knowing the amount of work involved, or what detours and road bumps were on the road ahead. Branding consultants working for large and small firms from around the world will be reading this. Tell me how and why you decided to use the services of small-sized vendors?MBV: Each of our three critical vendors – Creative Co-op, SilverTech and RKM Research and Communications – is very talented. They listened to what we needed, proactively suggested better or more efficient ways of accomplishing our goals, rolled with the many and sometimes incomprehensible changes, and delivered precisely what we needed. By using smaller-sized vendors whom we had worked with successfully in the past, we realized substantial cost savings and we gained the personal attention and dedication this project demanded. All vendors were critical parts of our team – truly our creative arms in this process. And it was a very personal effort for everyone; everybody was passionate and driven, and really took ownership of the project. They were our partners, and they added tremendous value to our rebranding effort. After launching the rebrand, we had an opportunity to work with an outside marketing expert with more than 30 years experience. We asked him to assess the overall cost and value drivers of the rebranding effort that we had implemented for American Water. His findings were startling: - Our costs were approximately $1.5 million for the time period assessed; - The expert estimated that American Water should have paid at least $5.2 million, indicating that we had accomplished a 4:1 return on our investment. - Literally for every $1 we invested in the rebranding of American Water, we yielded an additional $4 in value When we have an opportunity to talk with a client, we like to get tips for other clients like yourselves or for branding consultants looking to work with a company like yours.LM: Build a team of motivated, driven people who get excited about creating something and who are not afraid to do the work. Leverage your strategic business relationships – it is critical to be working with vendors you truly trust and who know and understand your work style and your industry. Do extensive research – both formal and informal, both internal and external. Be humble enough to collaborate with internal groups who know your audiences far better than you do. Work hand in hand with your legal team – SEC regulations are difficult to navigate throughout a process like this. Be very strategic and flexible – plan carefully but be ready to scrap those plans and start over, perhaps a few times. What have been your results?MBV: We met and surpassed virtually all performance targets we had set for the rebranding initiative: • We wanted to increase brand advocacy of those customers who consider American Water a “local company” by 15%. We increased it by 28% • We wanted to increase the percent of customers who could correctly identify the name of the company by 11%. We increased it by 18.5%. • Our goal was to increase the percentage of customers who accurately know who owns their water company by 39%. We increased it by 61%. • For those customers who were aware of the brand changes they were nearly 7X more likely to find the new brand more appealing than less, and their approval of American Water was higher if they had seen the new brand. • In addition to this prestigious REBRAND award, we have won nearly 70 awards in the 18 months since we launched the new brand • Our new Web site results indicated a complete turnaround: - Average sessions per day were 33 times more in the months since the new website was launched - Average page views per day increased by nearly 10 times since the site launched - 87% of our customers were “somewhat/very/extremely” satisfied with 66% reporting they were “very/extremely” satisfied - Our goal was to double the percent of customers using the new website, we increased by 114% • And perhaps most important of all, it has affected the culture at American Water – employees are proud of the new brand and what it represents, have adopted the new logo, use the taglines, and are thrilled that we are finally using photographs of our own pipes, plants and people. Thank you, Laura and MaryBeth for the additional insights. Few would have dared to attempt a rebranding effort with a launch that corresponds to an IPO. We certainly haven't found any examples. Maybe some of our readers may know of one or two they'll share with us.Laura Monica spearheads American Water’s internal and external communications, including government relations, media relations, customer relations, advertising and corporate responsibility. An industry expert, Ms. Monica previously held several corporate leadership positions, and served as president and founder of High Point Communications Group, Inc., an award-winning strategic communications firm. MaryBeth Vrees directs research, strategy and execution for American Water’s marketing and customer communications. Ms. Vrees has an extensive communications background including eight years as an award-winning television news journalist, several agency and corporate positions, and her own copyrighted media relations training programs. > view the American Water full project showcase> back to expert interviews main page |
