How can you start to spark a stronger brand culture (that you will eventually learn to tap into and take advantage of)? Here are some tips from the brand side.

Branding Mag (rightly) calls "shenanigans" on what feels like every company embracing the concept of "purpose" as a driver in their marketing. To the author's eyes, it is obviously self-serving and has been used to the point of uselessness. That's not good news for us employer brander folks, many of whom rely seriously on the concept of "inspiring purpose" in their EVPs (I mean, now many times in one newsletter am I allowed to use the term 'over-indexed' before this thing gets silly?). But there's some good, news, especially for brands who aren't just slapping a fresh of coat of "purpose" in the brand as the solution d'jour. Defining and proving how your company is trying to create a change in the world is the first step. Get it right, make it real, or just don't both.

What if you had to solve employer branding challenges and had no idea what employer branding was? You'd probably end up re-inventing it yourself. Which is effectively what this article does. But it's interesting to see how someone outside the space would approach the same issues we wrestle with ever day.

interesting pieces about what employer brand really means. To Emily, the employer brand is the company's conscience.

The word "purpose" gets attached to so much of what we do, these days. Our EB should provide purpose for employees (which is crazy, as purpose comes from inside people) and that the key to successful companies is a shared sense of purpose (which is always framed in "we save the world" language rather than "we retire early" language). But as EB gets closer to corporate brand, and as corporate brand understands how to leverage the people to support the brand, the conversation around brand purpose gets louder, but mushier. Which is why I thought this article on brand purpose was a good read: it talked about how to think beyond "use some sense of purpose to get more out of your employees" blah blah, and instead use a real sense of purpose to breakthrough roadblocks and see new possibilities. (includes some nice examples)

More and more businesses are looking to their own brand purpose to create a stronger brand foundation as everything seems to change every second around it. If your company is thinking about purpose (or you’re starting to spark those conversations), it might help to understand how purpose works and how businesses can leverage purpose strategically (also, companies don’t have purpose, people have purpose, and you’re in the people business, remember?).

And once you have “trust,” can you lead? Are brands morally obligated to change the world for the better?

“Brand that I can trust” has been an attribute that brands have measured for a long time. Looking back, a decade ago, it was hardly a differentiator. Since trust is built over time and can be broken overnight, it is a very fragile attribute for a brand. For the brands born in the last decade, it is the single most powerful long-term competitive advantage they can build and are building by putting social purpose in their core DNA.

"We’ve gone from one brand for every 1,700 people in 2,000 to one for just 158 people today. At this rate, we’ll soon be outnumbered."