3 Important Steps for Employment Branding

On April 5, 2012, in Dr. David Kippen, Editorial Advisory Board, HRExaminer, by David Kippen

Dr. David Kippen, HRExaminer Editorial Advisory Board

Dr. David Kippen, HRExaminer Editorial Advisory Board

Dr. David Kippen returns to the HRExaminer Editorial Advisory Board this week. Dr. Kippen is CEO and Chief Strategist of Evviva Brands. With a background spanning advertising and communications and a client base spanning the globe, Dr. Kippen is recognized as among the top thought leaders in brand strategy. David has held leadership roles in several top associations that support the HR and communications professions. He is currently a member of SHRM’s Performance Management Task Force and an active member of the Council of Communication Management. Full Bio »

3 Important Steps for Employment Branding

by David Kippen

Employer branding is growing up.

Ten years ago, the focus was on explaining that companies had both product brands and employer brands. Our clients were all called recruiters (or worked under the umbrella of talent acquisition titles). Recruiters worked with colleagues in marketing. But, as a general rule, marketing and HR didn’t get along.

Five years ago, the focus was on connecting all the marketing messages together. New titles came on the scene–like employer brand manager, and employment marketing manager. And marketing folks started finding their way into HR to fill them. Though these marketers often struggled to understand the complexities of HR–”you have how many audiences?”–they brought a number of important skills in agency management, and a strong sense of discipline to the client side of the equation.

When the recession pushed hiring into a deep freeze about four years ago, employer branding shifted from attraction to engagement. Initially, nobody was worrying about retention. As a result, internal and external employer brand practitioners began working with communications professionals and their often small, but always strategically-focused, budgets. Like the addition of marketers to HR, this shift brought important elements into the mix, and shifted the focus away from recruitment and external messaging to more existential questions about strategy, culture, corporate meaning and leadership.

Today, employer branding is on the verge of what may be the final step in its evolution. It has come from a loosely applied idea borrowed from marketing to a true professional specialty, one characterized by a commonly-accepted body of knowledge, body of practice, standards of measurement, and span of control. But before this can happen, at least three further evolutions must take place.

1. Employer branding must complete its separation from employment marketing. Today, whether it’s client side or provider side, there’s a stunning lack of clarity on where the employer brand ends and employment marketing begins.

Madison Avenue doesn’t have this problem:

  • Brand shops develop brands. They do research. They work with leadership to understand corporate strategy and develop long-range brand plans with their organizational counterparts. With this insight in hand, they develop the brand identity (name, personality, purpose, voice, attributes, logo or logotype, brand line), brand strategy, brand guidelines and a limited number of brand assets.
  • Ad agencies then use these assets to develop creative concepts from which they develop campaigns. They build websites. Develop account plans. Buy media. Create events. Measure traffic. And report campaign results.

In our space, this lack of clarity comes from a number of directions. The field’s new. There aren’t clear standards or measures (more about this in a moment). Many client-side practitioners are unsure of what they should ask for from–and what they can expect of–their external partner. Ad agencies add to the confusion by positioning themselves as one-stop-shops despite the inherent conflict of interest. (Media commissions are the closest thing to free money there is. So where the agency’s developing the brand strategy, the strategy will always point to spending of questionable value.)

The solution here is straightforward. As the distinction between employer branding and employment marketing becomes clearer, clients will seek the most efficient, best source of expertise for each discrete activity. Simply put, they’ll purchase brand work from brand shops and buy ad work from ad agencies.

2. Employer branding must be measured by metrics that matter. The thirst among clients for employer branding ROI is as endless as the target is illusive. It’s also largely pointless. In employer branding, ROI is the wrong answer to the wrong question. Though the typical investment in a recruitment campaign is a fraction of the spend for a product campaign, there are valid numbers that flow through the investment cycle. Some of these–like time to fill, cost per hire–are clear and straightforward measures. They’re blunt instruments and don’t give an accurate picture of causality. But all other things being more or less equal, they (and other similar measures ) are indicative of marketing effectiveness.

Unfortunately, these numbers don’t have that much to do with the employer brand itself. There are a number of ways of measuring employer brands. Through qualitative work it’s possible to get really good consensus about the brand’s heartland. This can be validated by quantitative studies inside and outside the organization. But there’s no industry consensus yet around what measures to apply universally. Until consensus emerges, the many self-proclaimed employer brand experts will continue to muddy the water.

3. Employer brand practitioners must specialize. Today’s generalist culture is the combination of employer branding’s ad agency roots and the field’s youth. Over time, we will see real professional specialization. As in brand agencies, expect to see expertise, and perhaps specialized credentials, in at least research, creative expression and strategy. Once these are in place, it will be possible to select a brand team, not just a brand “guru.” That’s important, because quite simply, it takes a team with specialized skills to get it right.

There’s a lot of ground to cover before these three thresholds are behind us. But there are good signs of progress in every direction. Clients are becoming much more selective and savvy about the branding professionals they engage, focusing on case studies, on-the-ground experience, and referrals to get past the spin. Ad agency offerings are being starved of oxygen– many of yesterday’s brand consulting “experts” have smoothly transitioned to “social media consultant” titles–and this trend shows every sign of picking up speed. Employer branding is showing up on the conference circuit for audiences well outside recruitment. And groups of specialist practitioners are forming strong, compelling offerings around employer brand research, strategy and creative.

The field won’t be fully grown in a day or a week. But it’s good to see we won’t be waiting a lifetime, either.

 

About the author

David Kippen

Dr. David Kippen, CEO and Chief Strategist, Evviva Brands With a background spanning advertising and communications and a client base spanning the globe and including top brands in every sector, Dr. David Kippen is recognized as among the top thought leaders in brand strategy. David's past clients include category-leading brands like Ameriprise Financial, Bain & Company, BlackRock Financial, Burger King, Catholic Healthcare West, Chevron, Coca-Cola, Dell, Disney, E.ON, HP, HSBC, General Mills, Intel, Kaiser Permanente, Marriott International, Moss Adams, Microsoft, Nokia, Premera Blue Cross, Teva and T-Mobile. He has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Times (of London), Economic Times (India) and top industry trade publications including Marketer and HR Director. His work has also been featured in USA Today, MSNBC (TV), Fox Business (TV) and Telemundo (TV). David has extensive international consulting experience and regularly presents on brand and communications theory at conferences and at customized seminars for audiences ranging from practitioners to senior executive leadership. Recent venues have included the Chicago Graduate School of Business, the Huizenga Business School, Nova Southeastern University, UC Berkeley and UCLA and for numerous associations and professional conferences including The Conference Board, the Northern California HR Association (NCHRA), the Society for HR Management (SHRM), the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) and the Western Pension & Benefits Conference (WP&BC). David has held leadership roles in several top associations that support the HR and communications professions. He is currently a member of SHRM's Performance Management Task Force and an active member of the Council of Communication Management. He has served as President and Chief Executive of the International Association of Business Communicators San Francisco chapter. He also served for three years on SHRM's Special Expertise Panel on Consulting and Outsourcing and as a Member at Large on the board of directors of Western Pension & Benefits Conference. David holds a bachelor of arts in English from San Francisco State University and PhD in English (Rhetoric) from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He completed doctoral work as a visiting scholar at the Stanford-UC Berkeley Joint Center for African Studies and currently teaches brand strategy at San Francisco State University. You can read Dr. Kippen's posts on HRExaminer here.

Visit Authors Website

If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!

 
  • Richard Mosley

    Excellent piece David. I thoroughly agree with your 3 main points, but would also add a 4th. For employer brand management to truly come of age it needs to be seen primarily as an extension of people management, rather than branding or marketing. The true strength of an employer brand lies in the employment experience. Branding and communication can amplify and enliven an employer’s external image but ultimately its long term vitality can only be sustained if leadership and HR management demonstrate their commitment to a consistent (and brand differentiated) employment deal. This is not only an essential prerequisite for the brand engagement of current employees, but also increasingly a fundamental requirement for building external reputation as well.  As Dan Tapscott pointed out – given the growing transparency of our socially networked world of work – ‘If you’re going to be naked – you’d better be buff’. Branding and marketing might provide the tan, but the body tone takes a lot more work. Richard Mosley, SVP Employer Brand Consulting – TMP Worldwide, LLC

  • http://www.evvivabrands.com/ David Kippen

    Thanks, Richard, for the kind comments. I agree with you–and your point raises an interesting, larger issue we’ve been working on for some time. For many brands, where the people are the product (we call these people brands) the question of what’s the employer brand vs. what’s the master brand becomes meaningless once the brand moves out of the talent attraction space. On all three sides of the transaction–employer, employee, guest/buyer/participant–the question becomes “what’s the desired brand experience?” 

  • Kc

    David – brilliant…

    I would add the notion that the Voice of the Consumer (VoC) in our Socially Engaged Economy is blurring the brand message and skewing the insights of even our most iconic brands.  The most successful companies have aligned their corporate culture and employment values with their brands and products to establish and solidify their brand identity.  In the new world of “big data,” the message we once managed to control our brand’s equity has exponentially been amplified by millions of inputs and parameters – skewing the perception.

    A new marriage of Marketing Strategy and Employee Culture and Brand is being sought by marketers who are trying to cope.  Companies like Southwest Airlines, Timberland, Virgin, Opower, Stonyfield, Zappos (and scores of others) are the best known examples of this, and their competitors and others are taking notice.  By relying on the Voice of the Employee (VoE), companies can snugly wrap their brand identity around their corporate culture and let Company Voices reflect the brand’s image in our socially connected economy.

    Of course, they need to foment a corporate culture where the values ultimately project a positive impression, but better employee engaged companies is a terrific side benefit of our Social Economy.  Great Article David!

  • Pingback: HRExaminer v.3.14 | HR Examiner with John Sumser

  • Gerrycrispin

    The issues are framed well. I appreciate how well you articulate them. Thank you. The solutions however need some work and alternative or interim steps…otherwise we’ll be suggesting the same solutions, again, ten years from now. 
    The one thing I fear is that the focus is so heavily centered on influencing people with existing skills, knowledge, and experience that we ignore the needs to influence a generation yet to enter our marketplace (who are all digital natives but unable to spell ‘engineer’) about the skills, knowledge and experience they’ll need to compete for all those well branded firms.

  • http://www.evvivabrands.com/ David Kippen

    Thanks, Gerry. I agree with the thrust of your argument; however, I think I’m making a narrower case than perhaps you’re reading. 

    We may well have issues to debate in ten years but unless we stand still, they’ll be different issues:• We need to solve for the distinction between branding and marketing;• We need to address the issue of measurement–at the very least, we need agreement on what we talk about when we talk about brand value in the employment space (as distinct from the revenue-generating side of the brand);• We need specialized talent in the space to deliver the findings, strategies and measures. To me, at least, the issue of how tomorrow’s talent acquires the necessary technical skills to make up the workforce of tomorrow is outside employer branding’s remit. But assuming there are skilled people tomorrow as today–and recent personal experience you and I have both had in India, China, South Asia, Brazil and Russia suggests there will be–I think it’s clear that the pressing issue to solve for is the increasingly poor primary and secondary educational system of much of the developed world. Lack of government investment and yes, exactly to your point, apathy among both parents and youth, put all developed countries at significant risk of decline no matter where the world’s most profitable companies are headquartered. 
    Best,
    David

  • David Kippen

    Thanks, KC! Very kind of you indeed. 

    I’m completely aligned with you on the “new marriage” you’re describing. That’s exactly what my company, Evviva Brands, is focused on. Most of the companies you cite are brands we’d define as “people brands,” brands where the people are the product and the delivery of the brand experience is the brand driver. (I made a similar point in my response to Richard Mosley, below.) Particularly in companies such as these, but to some degree in every company (as both you and Gerry Crispin point out) the effects of the digital marketplace have a significant effect on what we talk about when we talk about brands. The tricky bit–and I’ll have a post about this soon–is exactly the part you point out: connecting mission, vision and values with brand purpose and brand values without compromise or distortion. More about this later…but many thanks for your thoughts and kind words.

  • Matthew Gilbert

    Hi David,

    I enjoyed your article very much. I wonder though, whether
    employer branding is really a strategy, regardless of who, or whom, does what
    part in the process.  I’d put out there
    that the very first domino in this domino effect keeps being ignored. The first
    line is a choice. One must choose an employment context that they believe
    empowers success, makes a better product, or service, or career experience, and
    on all the levels that can be counted. Or, not make that choice and we’re back
    to long discussions about what employer branding is, or should be, or how it’s
    practiced.

    In my building in New York City is a tech incubator of
    sorts, teeming with mostly under 30’s who work 20 hour days, 7 days a week.
    They’re all trying to build next generation web apps, and phone apps.  Celebs show up now and then, like our mayor
    and Hollywood stars who’ve kicked in some money. Every Friday the incubator
    overall holds a party that is open to the public. For real! It takes forever to
    get an elevator, but I don’t mind.

    A job description for one of these companies would read
    totally unacceptable to any professional HR director. There’s no applicant
    tracking system in a single one of these firms. 
    There’s no culture other than what they forge amongst themselves.
    Diversity is not a policy, it’s the people attracted to this incredibly warm,
    welcoming and meritocratic universe—and boy is it diverse, from tattoos to Halloween-like costumes considered as business casual, to big science chit chat on the curb. They have no employer branding initiatives whatsoever. And
    they could care less. In my elevator conversations with these
    bright eyed employees, I hear echoed, 
    “we couldn’t find a job”, or “I don’t want my mother’s or father’s
    career”. And who’s wearing the suits, the VC funds desperate to get a look.  

    But what they all do right, despite the odds so clearly
    against any of them surviving more than a year or two, is the simple, human
    truth. People, employees, from whatever job or station participate in a process
    that nearly 99.9% of employees can not. They can drive the ship.

    They can have ideas that get heard, tried, fail and
    re-tried, without getting fired. They don’t worrying about the water cooler scuttle
    trashing their careers or an HR dress code, or interview process. They don’t think about job postings and resume access. They
    can do the craziest, counter-intuitive marketing gimmicks they want and no
    executive to demand their resignation for it. They’re outside the real economy.
    And they love it, love it, love it. It’s the most refreshing thing I’ve seen in
    a long while.

    Coming back to my original point, Employer Branding seems
    not a strategy, but a tactical program. These incubated companies intuitively
    know that. They do not create employer brands or job ads, or job posts. They create
    hives of collaboration, creativity, technology, democracy and I’ll, say it,
    socialistic entrepreneurship. All of them do this without giving it a moment’s
    thought. That’s their employer brand strategy, their first domino. They didn’t plan it, it’s the most basic human needs being met at work! Who’d have thought.
    Employer
    Brand = collective consciousness employment context with democratic-socialistic
    entrepreneurial judgment making process, with a kegger on Friday. They have
    attributes and benefits with no resemblance to anything on Monster.com or the
    career site or HR could suggest without being fired, except the mavericks!

    Can big companies do the same? Of course they can. Even if they impose a dress code they still can. Will
    they? I doubt it. The mavericks we point to as great employer brands have
    figured out that by choosing to be ‘the best they can”, from service to product
    to employment context, they have created exactly what an employer brand is
    supposed to be—the first domino—a business-employment marriage context strategy. And the rest is
    communications regardless of whether Landor does  #1, Duffy Design does 
    #2, and a recruitment ad agency does #3.

    Everyday I am lucky to see an employment context that by plan or by accident,
    values people like no other I can point too. They have nothing else to value
    and because they’re not following an HR employer branding anything, don’t know
    any better, which turns out to be really for the better. Imagine how hard it is for me as a creative director leading an employer brand practice to discuss the secrets of success with clients who will never start the process saying, “our mission is to create the best business-employment context we can.  Now, tets start the ideation”. I can only dream.

    Zappo’s, Southwest, Google they’re like another country. They
    put their energy into Employer Brand, the noun part, the first domino, (not
    employer branding, the verb part—packaging and copywriting and graphic design
    and testimonial videos that put us to sleep). Those mavericks make a judgment that something else is more important —to be the best employment
    context they can as a business driving force. Who decides that? Usually a wicked wise CEO, or enlightened
    leadership who wants a work environment the likes of which they’d want if they
    were employees, or for their kids. So would I. So would we all! Every incubator
    company in my building is this model.

    Employer Brand and employer branding are two separate
    activities. If the first domino in this chain is not a strategy of employment context, then it’s simply a game of packaging. My advice to an HR team wants to
    create an employer brand program is bang at their CEO’s, or
    Shareholders or Board of Executive’s door, and say, “let me help guide a business-employment context strategy—our first domino.
    Think long and hard before you answer because without valuing people we are
    vulnerable to those who do”.

    Please keep up the great articles.

    Matthew Gilbert
     

  • Pingback: Employment Branding Redux | HR Examiner with John Sumser

  • http://www.evvivabrands.com/ David Kippen

    Matthew,

    Thanks for the great feedback. There’s a lot in there and we could probably spend a week unpacking it. So forgive me in advance for following only one through-line in this reply. Your example of the business you observe every day is fantastic. It shows a few things it’s easy to forget or ignore. It demonstrates that work doesn’t have to be a bad word–that it’s something one can love, but only when there’s fusion between the organization’s purpose and the employee’s purpose. It underscores that mature organizations learn to defend against spending time on things that have a reasonable chance of failure. And it emphasizes the apparent scarcity of organizations that value what Dow branded as The Human Element (Hu).  I’m completely with you on this. Where I see things differently is in whether employment branding is destined to the dustbin of tactics. I’d argue it’s not–and that where it is a tactical implementation, it makes the case I outlined in the article, namely that the field’s not mature. 

    I won’t argue on behalf of every industry, but in the service industry, how people choose to act becomes a branded differentiator. Whether it’s Google, Zappos, The Ritz-Carlton, Starbucks, or any number of other brands, the experience leads the brand. At Zappos and Google, it’s the employee experience. At Starbucks and The Ritz-Carlton, it’s the guest experience. But in each case, their opposite sides of the same coin. If you agree with me here, the question becomes “so what shapes that experience?” You’d argue, “the wicked wise CEO,” I’d imagine. I wouldn’t disagree, but I’d ask, “and who guides the wicked wise CEO?” I suspect we’d agree that it starts with insights from the customer/guest/employee interaction. So what remains is, “and how does s/he get these insights?”  This is where we’d probably differ, but again, it underscores the point I was trying to make about the maturing profession. I’d argue that if the profession were mature, you’d have resources who specialized in gathering this kind of insight using qualitative and quantitative tools, consulting resources able to fix what’s broken, and strategists able to persuasively lay out the case to the CEO that “if you want to be the sort of company who stands for X, you need to be the kind of company that always does Y.” 

    I’d argue that this is exactly what a mature employer brand function should offer–but I’d also argue that we’d call it something different if we did. We’d call it a people brand. And we’d call the agency that provided it a brand agency, not an employer brand agency.

Page 1 of 11
More in Dr. David Kippen, Editorial Advisory Board, HRExaminer (305 of 859 articles)