August

When is an employer brand not an employer brand?

And so we find ourselves at the end of summer. The conkers begin to fall from the trees, kids are going back to school and I am still intending to wear shorts until it snows.

But what of Employer Brand I hear you ask? Well, I’ve been thinking about that too. And it started with a long diatribe about “how you don’t see much employer brand advertising anymore actually” but then had a bit of a rethink.

Just to be clear, when I’m talking about EB advertising I mean advertising with some specific aims,

-       Does it convey a sense or feeling of what it’s like to work there?

-       Does it concern itself with the reputation of the company as an employer?

-       Is there a direct call to apply FOR A SPECIFIC ROLE (if not it is definitely employer branding)

-       Does it aim to change or enhance the perception of the business as an employer?

My main beef was that as much I like talking about employer brand creative, unless you find your fill on career sites or attend employment events, there is precious little of this sort of stuff in the real world. Apart from the police, NHS or military, the external broadcast of the above kinds of messages are not often found far from owned channels or highly targeted ones (like programmatic).

The advertising you see out in the open (OOH, TV, Radio) tends to be of a straight recruitment variety ie “help wanted for this role”. Part of me put this down to not being as much in the creative space as I used to be when I was a Creative Director, but partially I also feel that budgets are being pointed towards online where ROI can more easily be measured (happy to hear thoughts on this).

And then this popped up.

At first I thought it was just a clever recruitment ad. But looking at it again I realised that of course it was both (plus some PR on top). It said something about the brand values and gave people a sense of what the company stood for as an employer. And if you look at all the other PR that Aldi are doing, it plays into the narrative ie value for people, more money in pockets and helping in the community.

Ooh that’s interesting I thought. Maybe THAT’S the thing. Maybe I shouldn’t looking for standalone employer brand creative examples. Maybe I should be looking for the other things that are employer branding but don’t necessarily look like them. Because in a world where other areas may hold more of the budget, maybe those are the best places to find them. It also ties in with the whole conversation around employer brand experience and it being part of the wider picture rather than sitting on its own. Which I like.

So that’s what I’m going to try and do. Look for EB wherever it may be. And when I find it, I’ll share it. Let’s see how that goes.

NB. I am also keeping in mind, (after watching the wonderful talk by Rory Sutherland from Nudgestock) that the above is probably a perfect example of bottom-up thinking. In that I doubt it was conceived as a piece around recruitment advertising that cleverly embodied employer brand narrative and corporate PR. It was more likely a good idea that people got on board with because it was fun and felt right. So here’s to more feeling.  

Rory Sutherland – taken from Notes by Praveen (who is definitely worth subscribing to)

Anyway…the links!!!

The employer brand creative bit

1. I thought this was cute. I like the ads that do that consumer/corporate and employer branding crossover and it feels like it is a proper TV or cinema ad (although clocking in at over 2 mins I could be wrong). I mean it’s obviously “look at how well we treat our workers” (although the scene with the family under the bridge seems a bit at odds) but it does give you a feeling of how they view the people that work for them.

2. This guy is out of Poland and seems to do lots of jobs. He does an interesting one for bp here. It straddles a strange netherworld of influencer and employer brand marketing but I like it. If I had hair and energy like his I would definitely want a youtube channel that was eerily reminiscent where I tried out jobs and mugged for the camera.

3. This is pure employer branding video. There’s something about it that makes me feel like I’m missing something cultural though. It does have a lovely vibe to it and they do get to go on a boat, so what’s not to like?  

https://www.adsoftheworld.com/campaigns/come-build-with-us

4. This is EB on a tangent. I used to work near Smithfield market and saw the meat market boys (they were always boys when I was there) knocking off as I came into work, blood stained and carrying carcasses. This paints a very beautiful picture of the camaraderie of the environment with some very sentimental interviews with people. I wonder why we don’t do more stuff like this.

Other creative things that I have liked

Board game that sums up what it’s like to be a woman (spoiler – it’s not great)

BookTok is selling lots and lots and lots of books

Amazing short about bipolar which shows that a talking head doesn’t need to be boring

It’s difficult to do charity advertising without relying on familiar tropes. Tearfund seem to pull this off though. And with a bit of humour thrown in. Really love this.

Thought this idea was very clever. And also used email marketing to do it. You don’t see that very often, do you?

Things I’ve enjoyed reading

1. How background affects so much in terms of opportunity. In this article it quotes the fact that KPMG analysed its own workforce and discovered:
   “...that socio-economic background, measured by parental occupation, had the strongest effect on how quickly an individual progressed through the firm. Individuals from lower socio-economic backgrounds took on average 19% longer to progress to the next grade, when compared to those from higher socio-economic backgrounds.” 

The forgotten strand of diversity

2. This company got all their staff to take the whole of August off

And that is me done. Thanks for reading and catch you in the later months where I may have added a scarf to my outfit.

Will