Creating a great brand is difficult. Often, the external brand and the internal brand are either not synchronized, or they are simply distinct strategies. Beyond the difficulty of creating a great brand, the difficulty of creating a single brand that communicates internally and externally is even more challenging.
In the ongoing discussion about employer branding (or employee value proposition), I was pondering the following brand:
You & Us … UBS.
I’ve been noticing their marketing campaign recently and have to admit: usually I notice the ads, but not the brand. In the case of UBS, I can’t remember anything about the many ads, but he brand clearly sticks out in my brain. It’s clearly a brand that could be used internally and externally, but when I saw some of their communications materials, the amount of effort spent developing the internal brand seems to be as extensive as the external marketing campaigns.
This external facing site spotlights over 100 employees of UBS communicating what the brand means to them. Grouped into 4 categories: “Powerful yet Close”, “More than a Job”, “Understanding the Client”, and “Part of the Whole” each category conveys important information to both potential clients and potential employees. it’s really quite interesting and impressive. to watch the flash player scroll by with employees holding signs (in all the different languages) that explain what the brand means to them on all four fronts.
They have also prominently featured these employee vignets in their handbook (downloadable here) and their financial reporting last year (downloadable here). Obviously for these last two, they chose employees who were communicating key attributes of the external brand, but once again, the most powerful form of communication is when you can get your employees to “evangelize” for you.
I suppose there are two main points to this post:
- Why develop a whole new employer brand when the brand is sitting out there for you? Chances are your employees might already understand what this means to them and you just need to tap into it. By doing this, you almost automatically have an employer brand that is synchronized to your external brand.
- Nobody markets for you better than your own employee workforce. The converse of that is that nobody can negatively publicize your organization like your own workforce.
11 responses to “Great Brands in Action”
Great Brands in Action July 7, 2006 on 2:00 am | by Systematic HR Creating a great brand is difficult. Often, the external brand and the internal brand are either not synchronized, or they are simply distinct strategies. Beyond the difficulty of creating a great brand, the
systematicHR – Human Resources Strategy and Human Resources Technology » Great Brands in Action
systematicHR – Human Resources Strategy and Human Resources Technology » Great Brands in Action
but reviewing it as a PC user and potential switcher is an interesting take. (via TUAW) Harris Interactive Spring 2006 EquiTrend Brand Study – Top 10 scoring consumer brands. Does high familiarity and low distinctiveness mean they have become generic? On employer branding and the UBS brand – The synchronization of employer and external/consumer brands is an interesting topic. College students spend on brands that respect Mother Nature – Being environmentally friendly affects student spending habits, but can that be extended to employment
You’ve got to be joking, right? Those ads are the most insidious sickening corporate toss out there. Note that it doesn’t center on what UBS does, how they differentiate from competitors – no, just some patronising touchly feely crap about how all there employees just love it. The very idea of communicating what a brand is in an ad is also creepy. Brands are supposed to be built through delivering quality services – ultimately the customers decide the values within a brand, and marketing attempts to nudge us in the direction they would prefer. But here you have an attempt by UBS to dictate to us how to interpret the brand. I know its a methoid used by a lot of companies, but its the sort of arrogance that gets by back up. As for employee testimonials – does anyone buy that stuff? Just how much choice to you think they have about what they say, and how many not-so enthusiastic workers were screeened out?
[…] 1. Take a moment to read – Great Brands in Action posted today by systematicHR. 2. Snuggle up with a warm cup of cocoa and read David Kippen’s TMP blog which also discusses employer branding. […]
Patrick:
Nope – I’m not joking. Make sure you’re differentiating between the employer (internal employee value proposition) brand and the external marketing brand. While the workds (You & Us) might be the same, the reflection of what the brand means changes depending on how you are using it.
Does nayone buy employee testimonials? I think so. If you look at your best recruits, they are employee referals. While this is a little bit different than the publication that UBS did, it’s still indicative of the power your employees have in influencing others positively (or negatively).
While we are all justified in our individual opinions on the UBS brand marketing, I think it’s a great tool for them. It’s a unique way to convey the employer brand. In today’s world where every differentiator is critical in the talent market, I think this is a creative way to get the work out regarding what it means to be a client of or an employee of UBS. Not only is it a mechanism to convey the message through various mediums (financial reports, on-line, etc…) but it also conveys a sense of employee pride. We may disagree, but I personally think it’s a creative way to communicate brand.
Great post…and I agree that to the extent you can build off the external brand the better. (I love the marketing term…it’s got alot of legs…)
See David Kippen’s comment on my linked post: http://recruitomatic.wordpress.com/2006/07/07/brand-aid/#comment-71
I believe UBS is still a TMP account so his perspective is particularly useful I think.
Amitai
[…] A while back I wrote about UBS’s employer brand (employee value proposition). UBS is a great example of putting the external marketing brand to good use in the internal employer brand. But lately I’ve been noticing another brand that I consider now to be the perfect brand: Dreamworks. […]
[…] Take a moment to read – Great Brands in Action posted today by systematicHR. 2. Snuggle up with a warm cup of cocoa and read David Kippen’s […]