Best Employer Brand Launches of 2025: Activation, Engagement and Strategy

Employer brand launches are defining moments in any employer branding strategy. They capture where a company is in its journey—and where it’s headed next. The best employer brand launches don’t just unveil new messaging; they activate company culture, strengthen the employee value proposition (EVP) and rally teams behind a shared purpose.

The 2025 Rally® Awards™ winners set a new benchmark for employer brand activation. Through bold storytelling, leadership alignment, clear strategy and measurable business results, they showed how to turn a well-defined EVP into an experience that inspires employees and attracts talent. After 6 years of Rally Award submissions in this category, one insight remains clear: the most successful employer brand launches bring a company’s purpose and values to life from the inside out.

This year, our panel of peer judges recognized three outstanding teams who transformed their employer brand into a Recruitment Marketing strategy that inspired employee engagement and attracted candidates worldwide.

• First Place: Vulcan Industrial — for their immersive “Winning Big” cultural movement
• Second Place: Verizon — for “The V Team Life,” their first-ever employer brand built on connection and authenticity
• Third Place: Highmark Health — for “Remarkable Together,” a unifying brand for a diverse health enterprise

In this blog post, we’ll explore what made these employer brand launches stand out, the creative strategies these practitioners used to turn internal employee engagement into external impact and what lessons you can apply when it’s time to introduce—or reintroduce—your own employer brand to the world. Let’s go!

2025 Rally Award Winners for Best Employer Brand Launch

Vulcan Industrial: “Winning Big” (First Place)

As Vulcan Industrial entered 2024, the fast-growing manufacturer was expanding through acquisitions and operating across eight North American locations. With an increasingly dispersed workforce and ambitious growth goals, Vulcan needed an employer brand that would unify its culture and strengthen connection at every level of the organization.

Partnering with Savage Brands, Vulcan defined its Employer Value Proposition (EVP) around a single mindset—Winning Big—supported by six guiding maxims that brought its culture to life. What began as an employer brand launch quickly became a company-wide cultural movement, inspiring pride and employee engagement through a shared sense of purpose and possibility.

The experience-driven launch included executive onboarding, leadership activations, and a high-energy, all-staff event called “The Opening Ceremony,” where employees shared personal stories of Winning Big and competed in a hands-on catapult-building challenge. Vulcan also introduced a custom-branded Microsoft Viva Engage app to connect frontline employees and sustain momentum long after launch.

Vulcan Industrial: Why They Won

Judges praised Vulcan’s ability to turn an employer brand launch into a company-wide cultural movement. They highlighted the creative top-down approach, immersive experiences, and impressive business outcomes achieved through strong alignment and engagement across all levels.

• Strategy: Vulcan grounded its employer brand in the Winning Big EVP and executed a phased rollout that engaged leaders, managers, and employees across eight locations.
• Quality: A high-energy, experience-driven launch featuring live events, storytelling, and team competitions inspired pride and belonging.
• Innovation: Introduced a branded Microsoft Viva Engage app to connect frontline employees and sustain engagement beyond launch.
• Results: Achieved 100% participation, 64% ongoing engagement, 15% reduction in attrition, 10% productivity increase, and 50% reduction in scrap.

Judges’ Comments

“This is an amazing internal employer brand campaign with bold, visual, and inspiring creative! The maxims really resonated and told great stories. The collaboration and effort it took to launch this was massive. This was a competitive category and you did a great job!”

“I really loved the unique top-down approach you took to evolve the company brand—it’s clear you were intentional in bringing everyone along on the journey. Your launch felt super innovative, especially the way you met employees where they are by hosting a live event and creating an app for deeper connection and learning. It was a thoughtful and engaging way to build excitement and alignment. Great job!”

Verizon: “The V Team Life” (Second Place)

When Verizon set out to launch its first-ever employer brand, the goal was simple but ambitious: to define what it truly means to be part of the V Team. Through six competitive analyses and 35 focus groups with more than 250 employees, the team uncovered four universal pillars—Impact, Connection, Well-Being, and Trust—that became the foundation of “The V Team Life.”

The campaign began with an anthem video that captured the authentic, unscripted stories of real employees. But what started as a single creative concept quickly evolved into a global storytelling movement, uniting teams across continents through one striking symbol—a red chair. Discovered by chance in a hotel lobby, the red chair became a powerful visual of belonging: a place where every V Teamer could be their true self. Across offices and countries, more than 1,500 employees were photographed and filmed sitting in that chair, turning it into a recognizable icon of the brand’s spirit and culture.

By amplifying these stories through Connected TV, Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, Spotify, Indeed, and digital out-of-home media, Verizon achieved both emotional and measurable impact—proving that authenticity and scale can coexist to create a lasting impression on employees and candidates alike.

The Verizon “red chair” has continued to show up in 2025 in videos like this Day In The Life.

Verizon: Why They Won

Judges described Verizon’s launch as “a creative, inspiring story that captured authenticity at scale.” They praised the red chair symbol as a memorable visual cue, the multi-channel storytelling approach, and the global employee participation that made “The V Team Life” instantly recognizable and relatable.

• Strategy: Grounded the brand in deep employee research and four core pillars—Impact, Connection, Well-Being, and Trust—to authentically reflect what it means to be a V Teamer.
• Quality: Delivered a high-impact anthem video and cohesive creative across internal and external channels, featuring real employees to ensure genuine representation.
• Innovation: Introduced the red chair as an iconic brand symbol and unified visual identity across regions and content types.
• Results: Generated 507M impressions in three weeks, doubled career site traffic, and achieved above-benchmark engagement across all digital and social platforms.

Judges’ Comments

“You did such an incredible job bringing the EVP to life! The storyline was creative, well thought out, and the employee-created assets added such a genuine, authentic touch. I really loved how you pulled together a multi-channel approach with a variety of content types—it made the launch feel dynamic and far-reaching. For this to be the company’s first-ever employer brand, you’ve set an amazing foundation. Truly impressive work!”

Highmark Health: “Remarkable Together” (Third Place)

For Highmark Health, one of the nation’s largest integrated health organizations, launching an employer brand meant finding a way to unite more than 44,000 employees across seven companies—spanning insurance, hospitals, and health technology—under a shared purpose. The challenge was not only complexity, but diversity: multiple businesses, multiple audiences, and one mission to make health more remarkable for all.

Through extensive research involving market analysis, employee surveys, and leadership interviews, the team uncovered three EVP pillars that connected every corner of the enterprise—Growth and Development, Collaboration and Nurturing, and Making a Big Impact. These insights became the foundation for the new employer brand, “Remarkable Together,” reflecting how the organization’s strength comes from people working in harmony across disciplines to deliver better care and outcomes.

The launch brought that idea to life through new photography, authentic videos, refreshed career site content, and coordinated internal activations. Recruiter training, hiring manager toolkits, and a brand ambassador program ensured consistency and advocacy, while paid and organic campaigns built awareness across key talent markets. Within the first year, applications and unique candidates increased by double digits, including a 15% rise in nursing applications—a critical win in one of healthcare’s most competitive talent markets.

Highmark Health: Why They Won

Judges recognized Highmark Health for “a comprehensive, integrated campaign with a strong internal rollout—often the hardest part to execute.” They praised the team for laying a solid foundation for future growth and for creating practical, scalable tools that brought the EVP to life enterprise-wide.

• Strategy: Unified multiple business units under a shared EVP and mission to create a cohesive employer brand.
• Quality: Authentic creative and consistent storytelling across channels and internal communications.
• Innovation: Developed recruiter toolkits and brand ambassador kits to empower teams as brand advocates.
• Results: Applications increased 14%, unique candidates rose 10%, and the talent community doubled—strengthening pipelines for high-demand healthcare roles.

Judges’ Comments

“You all tackled a tough challenge as the first Employer Brand team and made impressive progress in a short time—kudos for laying a solid foundation. I especially loved all the thoughtful resources you created for recruitment and hiring teams—such a valuable and practical support system. Great work!”

Lessons from This Year’s Best Employer Brand Launches

This year’s winners showed that a successful employer brand launch isn’t just about defining the brand—it’s about how you activate it across the organization. Vulcan Industrial, Verizon, and Highmark Health each took bold, highly coordinated approaches that transformed strategy into shared experience and measurable results.

1. Start with research and leadership alignment – Each launch began with deep listening and strong executive sponsorship. Vulcan and Highmark used leader-led activations to ensure early ownership and credibility.
2. Make it an experience – Vulcan’s Opening Ceremony and Verizon’s red chair turned ideas into symbols and experiences employees could rally around.
3. Empower storytelling – Real employee voices drove authenticity, from Verizon’s global anthem to Highmark’s local brand ambassadors.
4. Keep it alive – Internal tools like Vulcan’s employee engagement app and Highmark’s ambassador kits kept momentum long after the reveal.
5. Prove the impact – Each organization demonstrated how a well-activated employer brand strengthens Recruitment Marketing performance—from awareness to applications. These teams delivered tangible business results, including lower attrition, higher engagement and stronger pipelines that validated the value of employer branding.

Key Takeaways for Your Next Employer Brand Launch

The 2025 Rally® Awards™ winners showed that when a launch inspires participation, not just awareness, it creates momentum that lasts.Whether you’re redefining your EVP or evolving your Recruitment Marketing strategy, these examples show how creativity and authenticity build lasting results., the lesson is clear: clarity, creativity, and consistency turn an employer brand into a competitive advantage.

Now’s the time to plan your next launch. Nominations for the 2026 Rally® Awards™ open November 1. Gather your stories, align your teams and get ready to show the world what makes your culture remarkable—because the next winner for employer brand launch could be you!