"Unlike people, however, companies don’t have innate consciousness. The values and beliefs people adopt in their lifetime are often adopted subconsciously."

Twitter LinkedIn Shares These articles have been written by the first cohort of the Practice Makes Unperfect programme – a course that

The bitter and cynical black-hearted part of me really loved this article on brands and emotional dishonesty. All those brands projecting sunny dispositions and unrelenting positivity, are they really getting what they want? Are they applying a short-lived salve to soothe people's pains without actually changing anything? And in the world of employer brand, where there's no such thing as "short-term fixes," what would happen if brands embraced emotional honesty?

The assumption is that culture creates the brand, and I think that's true to an extent. Your brand is the intentional and judicious selection of traits and ideas that highlight your culture. But can you go the other way? That is, can you use the brand to change the culture? Great article on the chicken/egg situation and some great ideas on how you can make an impact on the culture.

There are a lot of reasons you might communicate as to why someone should work for your company. But have you considered that they'd want to work here because you're a thought leader? Here are some guidelines to consider when building out your thought leadership connected to your brand.

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.

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

"Not only is it a safety issue, it's a business issue," Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban told CNBC.

Friend of the newsletter Alex Her pulled together some good examples of how companies are pivoting their employer brand communications now that it seems the “new normal” is here to stay.

Case study: Cisco reinvents its employer brand around the concept of trust.

“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.

With the events of 2020 having redefined all aspects of work, how you position your employer brand has never been more critical than it is today.

Tim Sackett asks a pretty controversial question over on his blog: Should companies disclose their political leanings? Tim makes good points that just because a business might lean liberal or conservative, that doesn’t mean everyone does, or even that it’s a critical component to the employer brand. My take is simple: if it matters to leadership and staff what the political identify of an organization is, and it’s not exclusive of talent from other perspectives, there’s no reason not to talk about it. But in this day and age, where “wearing a mask” is seen as somehow “political,” the return from such a position is likely very very weak (if not completely counter-productive).

"When you think about your brand values, firstly have it clear in your mind that values for your brand will be as integral as they would be for a human being."

Trying to grow your brand without emotion (I mean, we are in the people business, right?) is a mistake. But leveraging emotion isn’t necessarily obvious or simple. It helps to understand your talent targets’ needs and desires.

Google’s Official Digital Marketing Publication. The new normal requires brands to continuously evolve and change through action. We’re here to help.

It’s nice to see an article admit that everyone offers a competitive salary, benefits, opportunities for growth and flexible working conditions. So what happens next? What happens you have to build an employer brand beyond that?

Employer brands can’t all be the same, so why are they all espousing the same ideas. They all seem to care about opportunity, and innovation and caring for their employees (in the same kinds of ways). So I love that Coinbase is taking a (very sharp) turn. They are very publicly rejecting the idea that companies have to take a stance on social good. It’s not that I don’t think companies shouldn’t care about social good, it’s that I love when a company is willing to do something different. The best part is that they didn’t dictate the position to the world, they gave staff a chance to jump ship as the boat changed course.

Most people seem to be of the opinion that brands play a meaningful role in people’s lives, so companies should consider how to get more involved in social causes. That sort of thing should involve your team, unless your company is just going to throw money at something, so here’s some smart thinking about how to connect your brand to social good.

It heartens me to see how even Recruiter is connecting the dots around how who you bring into your company is how you build a culture (turns out making posters doesn’t do much). This might make for some nice light reading when your culture team meets to talk about the next (virtual) picnic.

How often do we say, in other forums, to make sure we start with the consumer and not our own egos? The consumer now owns the brand relationship, not the Four questions companies need to answer in the process of defining brand values.