What does it take to build a strong employer brand? Well, you need to know how to execute projects (tactical mind). You also need to be able to select and prioritize your projects (strategic mind), but theres something still missing. If you want your brand work to achieve maximum impact, you need to know how to tap into a third mind: the political mind. The Three Minds of Employer Branding over at ERE.

Here's some advanced brand thinking: Is there an opportunity for you to mix high and low culture ideas to give your message more meaning, more interest? This article over at HBR looks at examples of how super luxury brands co-op super-low status ideas without losing their high-status desirability. Why care? I was struck by the idea that high-status luxury isn't really luxury anymore. I can fabricate or recreate almost anything. Brands like Zara are built on making copies of high-end pieces at affordable prices in weeks. So how to stay high status? Show your high level of taste. Show that you can put a gas station potato chip on four-star meal. Show that you can pull it off. The lesson for you and I might be that we can open up the horizon to all sorts of new ideas for our branding is we have the style and taste to pull it off. Example? If I ran the brand for a fintech brand, I might feel boxed in by who the customer base is. If I provided loans as needed, I might feel weird about providing high end swag to prospects. Maybe we shouldn't exclude these ideas out of hand, but look for ways to mix things up. Because the knock on effect of mixing the two is how... surprising and interesting these hybrids end up appearing. And isn't attracting attention and interest sometimes the point?