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September 29, 2006
Great Employment Brands: Can You Name Them?
Here's an interesting mental exercise. Get out a piece of paper (or open a new window) and jot down ten great brands. Don't worry about sector, never mind whether they're experiential, product, service, B2B brands, just jot down ten great brands.
Look at your list. How many of the brands you listed can you (a) describe an ad campaign for and (b) identify the core brand promise? (For example, if Nike was on your list you might point to the endless variations on the "Just Do It" campaign and guess that the brand promise is something around getting started, no matter what your level of experience or ability.)
We don't know one another, of course, but I'm pretty sure you'll be able to complete the exercise without any gaps for each of the brands you've identified. After all, what the brand promises and how it's expressed in media are two of the primary drivers of what makes a great brand, great. (That the brand actually delivers on the promise is the third leg of that stool, but that's a topic for another post.)
Now, go through the same exercise in the employment space. List ten great employment brands, describe a recent ad campaign and identify the core employment brand promise. I'll check back in an hour to see how you're doing. (Follow the "continue reading" link when you're ready.)
So, how'd you do? Did you come up with ten?
Scratch off any brands that don't run major market television spots.
How many do you have now?
Scratch the military off.
How many do you have now?
Chances are, you've got one or none. And you've just illustrated one of the most important differences between employment and consumer brand awareness.
In the U.S., employment ads really don't exist in the popular imagination: they exist only in the employment space. They exist for job seekers, for college students, but they're not really on the mental brand dashboard we all carry around. And that creates huge problems in unexpected places.
In the consumer space, value is demonstrated by showing a correlation between brand awareness and behavior. Here's a really simple example:
--An ad runs in a local market.
--All other things being equal or equalized, X% more product sells. --The value of the impressions is X% minus the cost of the ad run (along with a percentage of development costs, etc.).
The real-world measurement is more complex, but you get the idea.
Now, what's really interesting about the employment space is this: we typically are the least interested in the candidates who are the most likely to pay attention to the ads we develop.
The active seeker--a candidate who, for whatever reason, is making a career of comparison-shopping for his or her next job--is both the person most frequently exposed to employment ads and the person of least interest to the hiring employers placing the ads.
The passive seeker--a candidate succeeding in his or her current role and not looking for a next opportunity--is both the Holy Grail of hiring employers and the person least likely to be exposed to employment brand impressions. After all, these folks are typically hired on the basis of word of mouth, not ads.
Does this mean that there's no value to employment brands? Not at all. It just means that measuring the brand value requires a completely different yard stick.
More about that in my next post.
Posted by davidkippen at September 29, 2006 09:48 PM
Comments
Dr. Dave - I like your thinking. There's value to be had in all brand segments across the lif-cycle of any organisation - especially with employment branding.
I agree that employment brands are not only measured with the relevant metrics that gauge the effectiveness of the employer brand promise, but also provide insights around the candidate as a 'complete' customer of the brand.
I mean let's look at the connected picture. Using employer brand metrics as a enagagement platform that will speak to various stakeholders across an organisation.
I mean working towards actual brand alignment that translates into holistic planning for truly integrated campaigns representing 'The Brand' -epsecially with the main stakeholder culprits (i.e. brand marketing, corporate strategy, HR and stakeholder communications etc).
You've highlighted that employer brand messages are not really top of mind for candidate consideration until they're triggered by an 'life' event - e.g. I'm looking for a job now.
I believe there has to be leveraging against the total brand essence of any organisation (hopefully they're at that stage of organisational maturity). Helping the brand to 'touch' the candidate more than once that dovetails into their life-cyle/ journey... a moment of truth? Me thinks not just for the candidate, the organisation will be evaluated.
I'm into transparency and results.
Looking forward to your next post.
Posted by: Neville Anitelea at September 30, 2006 08:28 AM
Thanks, Neville, for the kind words. You make several of the points I was planning to make in my next post and highlight one of the most important effects a well-managed employment brand can have: to reinforce the linkage between what the organization's trying to accomplish and the individual contributor's contribution. It's well and fine to go on about mission, vision and values, but at the end of the day, for most of the workforce in larger organizations, these are too large, too generic to be meaningful. What most employees want (beyond pay and benefits, of course) is an understanding of how their work, their personal values and the organization's work connect. And in a well-run organization, that point of connection should be the internal brand.
Posted by: David Kippen at October 2, 2006 02:59 PM