In Part 2 of their special guest episode of the Believe in Banking podcast, Gina and Juliet welcome back Yvonne Garand, Chief Brand and Marketing Officer and Jevonne McLaughlin, Vice President of Brand Marketing, from EastRise Credit Union. In their conversation, Yvonne and Jevonne describe the rebranding process following the merger between New England Federal Credit Union and Vermont State Employees Credit Union. They discuss the process of selecting a new name and the formation of the brand identity for the organization, and how data was key to their decision making and consensus building. Fundamentally, they credit the successful transition to EastRise to their strong commitment to reflecting the values of the merged organization. And finally, Yvonne and Jevonne discuss the evolution of the credit union’s culture and reflect on managing change across the organization – a journey grounded in time, trust, and transparency.
Text Transcription
Intro: This is Believe in Banking, a podcast series for decision makers, influencers, and leaders, featuring experts taking on the financial industry’s most pressing issues with insight and empathy. The podcast features information and conversations designed to enlighten and empower.
Gina Bleedorn (00:17): Welcome our podcast for Believe in Banking. I’m Gina Bleedorn, President and CEO of Adrenaline.
Juliet D’Ambrosio (00:23): And I’m Juliet D’Ambrosio, Chief Experience Officer at Adrenaline.
Gina Bleedorn (00:29): On our last podcast, we featured part one of a very special conversation where Juliet and I welcomed Yvonne Garand, Chief Brand and Marketing Officer and Jevonne McLaughlin, Vice President of Brand Marketing, both of the newly named at EastRise Credit Union. They discussed the merger between New England Federal Credit Union and Vermont State Employees Credit Union, to form EastRise, which is now Vermont’s largest credit union. Yvonne and Jevonne described how the institution that would become EastRise successfully built consensus for a new name and brand transformation while managing the cultural elements of organizational change. It was an enlightening conversation with two of the credit union movement’s inspiring leaders.
In this month’s podcast, we’ll feature Part Two, where we dive deeper into the rebranding process, including the importance of transparency in selecting a new name, the role of data in decision making, and how EastRise activated a framework for implementing widespread change across their organization. Yvonne and Jevonne describe some of the challenges inherent in rebranding, noting that creating a new culture takes time and requires adequate space for employees to organically develop new norms and behaviors. What comes through is an undeniable commitment to serving their communities and making a positive impact in their members’ lives. Please enjoy.
Juliet D’Ambrosio (01:57): I will go back to our very first naming presentation. I think we shared 10 names with you that were all – to the degree that we could understand their legal availability that were legally available – that combination of Birkenstocks and Blazers. And I’d love to hear how you and your team – all of us have strong opinions and that is true of your team also and your leadership – how you worked through the process of ultimately choosing the name EastRise Credit Union and how it speaks to that sense of the shared mission that you’ve both spoken of.
Yvonne Garand (02:36): Yes, there’s a lot there, Juliet. My memory recall is that when we worked with Adrenaline, I do want to reemphasize the importance of the data and information behind this process. It wasn’t just a bunch of creatives sitting around a table and penning on a white piece of paper [thinking} “What are some potential names?” It truly was data driven, and the data did state there needed to be this emotional connection to a name and identity that gave people this sense of security, reliance, confidence, but that also made people feel like they were speaking to a neighbor when they were relying on anyone at the credit union for solutions and support.
And we also knew that geographically, Vermont holds a very special place in our hearts, and Vermonters are very helpful, very neighborly, very caring, but with a real strong sense of independence. And of course, Vermont, when you think about it and you close your eyes, and you try to imagine the landscape of Vermont, it’s very natural, very earthy, green, beautiful waters… So working with Adrenaline, we asked, “How are you going to take all of this information, all of this data that we now have, information that members and consumers have shared with us, and how are you going to wrap it all up and present us with one name?”
And I do remember that first round, and actually, Juliet, I’m looking at those 10 names right now, and I can see EastRise is on that list, on that first round. I think we went through three rounds of names when myself and my team were reviewing the names and listening to the narrative behind each name. Adrenaline presented each name and contextually gave a little more information and examples of how the name would be used, so that you could begin to imagine what it sounds like rolling off the tongue and what it might look like. In that first round, it became very apparent to us the things that we were going to lean into, and the things that we didn’t want to lean into.
I’ll talk about my memory recall and then Jevonne, maybe you can share yours? But my memory recall is that two things that stood out in that first round: we felt like some of the names were trying just too hard to evoke those Vermont values or Vermont geography or a Vermont iconography. It was just either trying too hard or some of the names were fanciful names. And even though we liked them, we knew that with our past experience of trying to change the name previously at Vermont State Employees Credit Union that we needed to rely on an actual word or a compounded word and gave that feedback.
And subsequently the team came back with other rounds, and you could begin to see this feedback [reflected]. The Adrenaline team was very attentive. They were listening. They understood my team was very communicative. And as a result of that partnership with subsequent rounds, we did end up, I think, with five names that we actually liked. But Jevonne, do you remember that first round?
Jevonne McLaughlin (05:56): I do. And I remember, this is where my memory recall says, this is where things got a little spicy internally. We had established the brand strategy at this point, and the name was kind of like that first tangible, audible, concrete thing that was going to come from the brand strategy. So, it was pretty emotional seeing the names. And of course Adrenaline was very good at reminding us of this, that the name is only one piece of the brand identity.
But of course, we’re going through these table stakes and strategically these critical items like availability, which is its own animal in terms of domains. I think what I recall, even though we had these boxes and not every box was going to be checked, we didn’t want to default to legacy brands with the name. We wanted to make sure that that name would differentiate us, but not get too creative, so that it wasn’t understandable.
In referencing the region, because a lot of the data that we had, and of course Vermont has its own unique brand, which adds just another level of complexity to brands within Vermont is just so special and powerful, but we didn’t want to be limited regionally like our legacy names had been. We still wanted to nod to our region because our roots were so important to our existing members. And I think we were looking at, like Yvonne said, being inclusive and accessible and not limiting, easy to pronounce. We were just not going to get into a situation with any sort of acronyms again.
After several rounds of deliberation internally with our team, we had I think three to five in the end that we were pretty torn on, and EastRise actually made it through all of the rounds. It was in the first round, and made it all the way through. And I think for me and some others, what really turned us to decide on EastRise was it just encompassed the spirit of the new brand so well. And that name has so much meaning that ties back into that brand strategy and our identity, and I think that’s what really surfaced that name to the top.
Juliet D’Ambrosio (08:04): And I also will give your team a lot of credit because you’re right, it got spicy. It was a little emotional. But what ultimately, I remember the turning point and where there really became a rallying cry around EastRise throughout both the teams was looking at the research. We were, each one of us has again, our own sort of subjective bias around what names we like, what names we think are good, and I think what was really important is that your team did the process right. And you said, “Well, let’s get beyond that, and don’t take our word for it that this is a good name or this other name might work, but let’s ask the market.”
And so looking at the data and how prospects responded to some of maybe two or three of your top contenders, and then really seeing how EastRise rose to the top helped to have confidence moving forward. It’s a leap of faith – any brand change is a big leap of faith. But having that research and the data behind it, even though it adds time, it is a methodical process. It does give your team a real sense of confidence and then [you can] move into all the other phases of the rebranding process, identity, etc.
Yvonne Garand (09:23): Yeah, Juliet, what I want to add to that for the listeners is that the reason why it worked and the reason why our CEO gave us his trust was because we were able to articulate and demonstrate the methodical process that we were going through. And to your point, Juliet, it then gave the entire board the CEO and the rest of the senior leadership team confidence in the name that was selected. And I think we narrowed it down to two names. We had one recommendation, which was EastRise, and we had another one that we also liked that we said we could live with this name as well. We tested the names, and EastRise outperformed the other name. We shared that data with the board, and at the end of that meeting, the board approved moving forward with EastRise.
Gina Bleedorn (10:15): Well, one thing about EastRise that I really love is yes, as you both said, it captures the both practical and progressive – Birkenstocks and Blazer. It really middles between and pulls out in a unique way, your culture, your mission, and your strategy. It is also technically a fanciful name. But it is two real words that come together, so it’s such a strong name. As you talk about how you were able to control the process so that the board receives that level [of information]… Did you get pushback from your board?
Yvonne Garand (10:54): We did not get pushback, and I think it’s because it is the integrity of the process and the approach that gave the board, the CEO and the rest of the senior team confidence in that process. And there really wasn’t any pushback at all. Now, certainly throughout the process, and this is so typical and to be expected, board members of fellow team members would throw names in a hat. “Have you thought about this name,” and you graciously thanked them for the name and say ”Well, thank you.”
But yeah, the process was just incredibly thorough. In the end, you could not deny the EastRise was the right name for us. The other thing that was a little bit different, again, from my experience having done other name changes, before we even got into naming, we spent so much time discussing our brand strategy, creating the brand framework, really leaning into our DNA, being able to articulate it, speak about it, identify those brand values, build that brand house, and have a collective shared understanding of: this is who we are going to be as a new entity, this is why we exist, this is the impact that we want to make, and this is the purpose of our existence.
And the board was very involved in that process and that then begins to inform the storytelling behind the birth of this new identity and the name. The process works.
Gina Bleedorn (12:33): I love hearing that. That is certainly our experience at Adrenaline, having done this for 20 years, is the process works and without it, you are left in a ‘no man’s land’ of subjectivity. And boards members, God bless them, sending in their name suggestions, most of which usually are not necessarily bad, but they’re simply not available.
Yvonne Garand (12:56): Correct.
Gina Bleedorn (12:56): And so that is not generally understood. I think what you just said is probably one of the most important pieces of advice you can give: to trust in the integrity of a very thoughtful data-driven process. The fact that your leadership and your board did do that – with of course transparent communication along the way – it says a lot about the strength of your now combined organization. What other pitfalls, if you are advising other credit unions facing M&A, whether it’s an acquisition or a merger of equals like this, what would you tell them about what pitfalls to avoid?
Yvonne Garand (13:36): Yes. For me, there are two. One, culturally it’s hard bringing two organizations together. Even if you share the same belief system, value system. I mean creating new cultures takes time. For the listeners [I would say], to go into this with your eyes wide open. That as energetic and excited and optimistic as you are because you will understand the strategic value and benefit of bringing these two organizations together, you may have people that come to work every day and they’re not going to understand it. And so there is this bit of, I don’t want to say clash, but this difference in cultures.
Just know that it takes time to collectively create a new culture together and it’s not a specific leader all of the sudden announcing to the new organization that this is our new culture and this is how I expect everybody to behave. That doesn’t work. The people inside the operating system – the 400, 500, 600, 700 or 200 people inside that operating system – give them space and time to work together and organically that workforce will begin to create new norms, new behaviors in new culture that compliments the new brand. So, I think it’s very important for your team members, your workforce, to have a deep understanding of the new brand, the new brand identity, new brand values, because brand and culture live together.
My second piece of advice is that, for us, we actually went through a system conversion after we merged. We had legal day one where legally we’re now operating as New England Federal Credit Union, but now we have to determine which products and core system we were going to operate on. So for a period of time, we served our combined membership with two different systems and eventually identified which systems we were going to adopt and then put our members through this very complex system conversion that didn’t necessarily impact the entire membership, because only one half of the membership was experiencing pain and change as a result of some system changes.
The other half of the membership might also be experiencing a different set of pain points as a result of our operational decisions. So we put our members through that conversion. And then I think, Jevonne was it a year later, we put our members through another conversion, a brand conversion? So, we put our members through another set of painful experiences. And even though we were communicating along the way why we chose to do it this way and felt it was important. If I had to do it all over again and I was the sole decision maker, I would do it differently, and I would try to plan accordingly so that our system conversion and brand identity conversion was happening at the same time so that you’re disrupting your members only once. Because we know that change management curve, it takes time to go through that process. But Jevonne what about you?
Jevonne McLaughlin (16:55): Well, we share similar views on where some of the pitfalls could be. I think I have a combination of your approach, and I was a little more in the weeds with system conversion and what we call brand conversion internally, which was basically transforming a year after system conversion, the entire org to a new identity. However, I will say, although it was a long process and system conversion definitely had some pretty significant direct member impact. It went very well. So that was fantastic. But had things not gone great, my concern was there could have been a risk to the reveal of the new brand at the same time as a system conversion. So, there’s multiple ways to do it, and I don’t know if I’d do it differently given how successful we were. And that truly we made some really great strategic decisions in our systems not to force any real direct member impact at the launch of the new brand.
So, it was like new look and feel. It was great in terms of separating the two, but I will say the complexity that was added, especially for the marketing team, to Yvonne’s point: that was one of the biggest things I would just advise to expect. There’s healthy tension when two organizations come together, even if the cultures look very similar at the highest level. It’s just like walking into someone else’s house. Their style is different, their thermostats are set at a different temperature. And so it was very closely also tied to the brand. And at system conversion, the one thing that didn’t convert was the brands. So I had this marketing team and the entire org not truly able to unify around one identity yet. To Yvonne’s point, that sort of length of maintaining and trying to accept these cultures and navigate with these three to four legacy brands at this point did make it tricky.
And it was kind of a long road, but I think in the end, not that I would encourage anyone dragging out the timeline, the acceptance of the new brand definitely tied into that waiting for it and the ability to unify around it after we’d done a lot of this work together that was new, and you don’t do it very often. So, I think several different approaches, but I guess the biggest things for people to just be aware of is that there will be tension around brand culture, and I think that’s more of a signal of the passion for the cultures and the brands versus maybe resistance to change, which can also exist. But it took me a little while to realize that, oh, it’s not that people are so against the change, it’s just that they’re so passionate about their legacy brand culture, and we don’t have the answers yet to tell them what it is that we’re going to be or do.
Juliet D’Ambrosio (19:50): Yeah. Jevonne, you brought up that idea of passion, and if there is one thing that we learned about both of you and really about your teams, it’s that you are very passionate and the way that passion manifested was in everyone wanting to do the right thing. I’m curious, Jevonne, from your perspective, having led the communications around the brand change, what were really the keys to making sure that you were able to communicate the passion behind ‘the why’ in a way that mitigated resistance and ultimately helped lead them to embrace it?
Jevonne McLaughlin (20:31): Yeah, that is an excellent question. And again, I think the process comes back into play and really staying true to that process. So, communicating the process and where we were in the process. It was being as transparent possible with the marketing group, bringing them along in the process, but not sharing all the details internally. While we were building the brand, we were also prepping for brand conversion, which was basically a complete overhaul of everything in the organization, all the platforms, systems, collateral, the name, everything. I mean, it was, gosh, I want to say we built in at least 6-8 months for that. And again, it was just sharing what I could about the process, and the importance of working on this together and having it done, but also the opportunity that existed. And with all this work, trying to keep people excited and engaged. When we got to the employee reveal, it was absolutely amazing.
That communication, amplifying the brand, sharing the name, and creating that buy-in and ownership with them was critical to the rest of our launch to members and marketplace. But with members, because we had communicated to them that a name change would be coming, we communicated almost a year earlier during system conversion and didn’t do a ton of communication after that because we wanted to not cause any anxiety or stress around it, and we really wanted it to be seamless and exciting. That direct to member communication about three months prior to the big market launch and that brand conversion, I think was absolutely one of the reasons that it was so successful. We gave them this inside look and the first look at the name and the identity, and we broke down some of the identity.
It was extra work, but we rebranded just portions of our three legacy sites. We weren’t even on one website yet. We were still maintaining those legacy websites so that they could just look and feel and read the story, and then give them a heads up that in September we would be doing the full market launch and that the platforms would change. So I think it’s as much as you can communicate without creating any anxiety or over-anticipation of something that needs to be carefully planned, and follow along in the process and continue to remind them of the opportunities and how much better it was going to be unified around one identity and the work we’d be able to do going forward.
Juliet D’Ambrosio (23:09): And Jevonne, also, it strikes me that you and your team’s lives were made infinitely simpler because you are not maintaining three legacy brands. It’s just one now. What a relief that must be.
Jevonne McLaughlin (23:26): Yes, celebrations were had. I think this was the first time, because especially on the marketing team, but I can speak to the entire org where the true power of brand culture was really brought to life for myself and for my team… I’m trying to build this in the middle of a merger, and we’re somewhat still separate, but some of us are unified around building this new brand. Then I slowly pull in some others in the org who need to help to build that, to bring it to life. Just watching the transformation and how people came together around that new identity was really remarkable. And we felt it.
And my team is in a different place, and I’m so proud of them for how long they managed the legacy brands while still trying to work on coming together. That’s hard because I had roles basically in their old brands, which allowed them to live in their old cultures to a certain extent. But I think it just really showed how powerful a brand can be. And the entire organization responded the same way. We were very overwhelmed after our employee reveal with just the outpouring of like, “Can we get this?, ”We’re so excited,” and “Can you rebrand this?” And a lot of those things weren’t critical for brand launch, so we were trying to manage that, but it was fantastic.
Gina Bleedorn (24:43): Well, it’s very clear – both of you with so much passion, energy and just competency, and you managed this so well – it is clear both of you believe in banking. Can you tell us why?
Yvonne Garand (24:59): Yeah, I’ll start. Of course, having been in this industry for 30 plus years, and obviously I love working for a credit union, and I do believe that banking can be a force for good that goes above and beyond a consumer need. I love working for a brand, for a company that sees the real value in recirculating resources to create greater impact in communities, beyond just serving a member need. And that’s why I love the EastRise name, and I love the EastRise story. It does evoke this feeling of a new day. There’s something on the horizon. The sun is always going to rise in the east. You can have a horrible, horrible day, and then go to bed at night and know that tomorrow’s going to be a new day.
This is what energizes me. This is what makes me excited about being part of EastRise – that we’re something more than just banking. So Gina, when you say, tell me why you believe in banking. For me it’s more than banking. I believe that we can reinvent the way that finance works, the way the banking system works in a way that truly empowers people and that takes those excess resources that are generated by people doing their banking together and then using those resources in impactful ways that rise up people in different communities. Because when our communities are thriving, individual people are thriving.
Jevonne McLaughlin (26:32): And I will have to echo some of what Yvonne said, that working for a purpose-driven financial institution and being more than just banking is part of what makes me believe in banking and why I’m so passionate about what I do. I also really understand, if you peel away the onion at the core, banking is essential to people in communities, and it’s very emotional if you think about it. Every interaction that you have with your financial institution, whether it’s buying a home or going through a divorce, or there’s been a natural disaster, or you need to buy a car or you’ve lost your job, there’s either fear or joy or the unknown.
And I think as a local credit union, we show up in so many ways in people’s life journeys. It’s about the experience we do have, the tools and the support and the way that we make people feel is super important, and it’s part of the story of their lives. Banking is the foundation or catalyst or conduit. We can show up as the hero in our communities and in the lives of others. And I think there’s just so many opportunities to look at it differently and just be that force for good.
Outro: You’ve been listening to Believe in Banking, a podcast series created to empower decision makers, influencers, and industry leaders in financial services. Be sure to also join us on our flagship site believeinbanking.com.