Amber Beverage: lessons learned from company name changes
Global spirits company Amber Beverage Group (ABG) recently underwent a number of company name changes and has openly shared some insights from the moves.
ABG has seen a period of change in recent years. In addition to acquisitions – such as the purchase of Walsh Whiskey – the company updated the names and corporate identities of several of its own companies around the world.
At the beginning of 2021, ABG brought 10 of its international companies into alignment by renaming them under the ‘Amber’ flagship corporate name.
The process has been described by ABG as ‘highly complex culturally, legally and logistically’.
However, the group, which owns brands including Rooster Rojo Tequila and Riga Black Balsam, said it was possible to ‘positively’ manage change – both from within the company, and when navigating external contributing factors.
ABG board member and chief legal officer Artur Evart has shared key learnings from both legal and communication perspectives following the company’s name changes, both good and bad.
Below, Evart highlights the seven key findings of the company shift.
1. Allow time when external factors slow down external organisations.
“The legal paperwork process involved in implementing new company names across the Group was additionally complicated by the global pandemic, as in some places it was not practical to take corporate decisions setting effective dates in the future as we needed to coordinate all legal actions to coincide with the run-up to the designated name changes. Doing this remotely when institutions such as banks and official registers were working remotely, were often hard to reach and were slow to respond made our procedures difficult.”
2. Ensure your corporate values and culture are aligned throughout the process.
“From the beginning we created a step-by-step communications plan, involving all employees and other stakeholders, to ensure we explained and covered the key aspects of the process. We decided that this was to be managed centrally, within a pre-agreed timeframe, so that the changes would happen simultaneously across our various companies throughout the world. We operate in 16 countries and have 24 national and manufacturing businesses in total. At the beginning we have spent time with company heads of each entity to agree how they would implement Amber in their name.
“One of the most important parts of the renaming programme was to include employees in every location and to ensure Amber values. Amber is an acronym for: Ambitious Minds Bring Excellent Results. Inevitably, perhaps, the initial reactions from many of the employees to the changes were cautious and concerned. We spent time and effort explaining that this change would bring positive results to all employees. We wanted to make this change visible and included trademarks in the offices, on the laptops, car branding, emails, and elsewhere. This complex approach brought an element of excitement for staff and we have experienced significant support for the change across all our companies. It also introduced a consistency of approach and acted as a continuous reminder of the rebranding and its significance.”
3. Be sure to bring employees with you every step of the way.
“Change can be worrying for people; management of that change involves bringing everyone with you and leaving no-one behind.
“With this in mind, and because inclusivity is important to us, we translated all communications materials into seven different languages and prepared readily comprehensible messages and a Q&A to ensure understanding of the changes throughout the company, to engage employees with the rationale for change, and to engender their support.
“The goal of the project was to include Amber in each company’s name to drive the common protocols for operations and create a consistent perception in the market whilst preserving the valuable heritage of our national companies, many of which have a great history.
“We came across different interpretations of the same words in different places. For our distribution companies we chose the name ‘Amber Distribution’ in the Baltics, and selected ‘Amber Beverage’ in Germany, Austria, Australia, and the UK.”
4. Where changes aren’t welcomed at first, a creative approach can help to reach the goal.
“The process has shown that people’s openness to change is likely to originate from a country specific culture, rather than being affected by the size or the history of the company. One example is that of one of the biggest companies in terms of number of employees – Amber Distribution Lithuania (previously Bennet Distributors), who were accepting of the name change from the very beginning.
“Meanwhile, in Australia the project was not initially perceived with enthusiasm, but our projects team, led by Julia Dmitrieva, was able to change the mindset during the process, providing creative solutions and breaking down the stereotypes to resolve the scepticism and overcome the challenges.”
5. Be alert to national customs and sensitivities.
While working with company name registrations in order to unify the company branding across the globe, there were challenges with some words, such as the use of the words: ‘Tequila’ and ‘agave’.
For example, for two companies in Mexico we chose the names Amber Production Tequila and Amber Agave. It appeared challenging, as the words ‘Tequila’ and ‘agave’ are perceived as being part of Mexico’s cultural heritage and we had to avoid being seen to misappropriate these names. We also intended to register the names of the companies as the trademarks, which in the case of Amber Production Tequila appeared to be difficult. We overcame this by integrating Mexico into ABG’s company culture and demonstrating this for our Mexican roots to be recognised.”
6. Be ready to face unexpected bureaucratic challenges.
There were differences in the ways regulatory bodies operated in different countries. In some places, most of the formal changes were notified and recorded automatically – documents were submitted electronically, and responsible institutions released these changes to other institutions informing them that the process had been done. This was not the case in certain places, notably in Mexico where a great deal of paperwork was required as each document mentioning the company’s name had to be manually amended. The procedure is bureaucratic as several appointments had to be arranged with each institution. What we learnt was that having your own legal company representative on the ground in such cases could be a good investment.”
7. Remember that re-labelling is about more than just a re-design and allow time accordingly.
“As one of the core ways Amber Beverage Group represents itself in the marketplace is by putting ‘Amber’ on each bottle, as a result of the name change, we had to alter the labels on more than 100 million bottles across more than 100 brands. We therefore had to adjust the timeline of the project to the lifecycle of sales and production to ensure that the production capabilities were aligned with our plan. This allowed us to make a smooth transition, without having concerns about the necessity of changing everything overnight and potentially harming our supply chain.”
Evart added: “As a fast-growing global beverage company dealing with logistics and distribution as well as manufacturing and representing our and third-party drinks products, we take our place as a global industry leader very seriously.
“We were well-prepared but nonetheless encountered challenges along the way, notably those of bureaucracy in a world that had changed virtually overnight, but also because of cultural differences, which play a very important role.
“We are proud at the way the project worked and wished to share our perceptions of the key lessons learnt from the change management process on a global scale. It was hard work, but it has already increased Amber’s presence on the world stage. This was change for good.”
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