Branding Strategy Insider helps marketing oriented leaders and professionals like you build strong brands. BSI readers know, we regularly answer questions from marketers. Today we hear from Fauziah, a senior brand marketer in Kuala Lumpur, Malysia who has this question about corporate and employer branding.
We are in the process of developing the corporate brand and parallel to that is the development of the employer brand. A list of the brand personality and the brand values have been developed separately for the corporate brand and the employer brand. My question: Is it appropriate for the brand personality (corporate and employer brand) to be the same and/or similar to the brand values?
Thank you for asking this question, Fauziah. Yes, there should be a correspondence between the core values of the organization (or the corporate culture) and the personality of the corporate brand. That is, the core values of the organization should reinforce (or at least not be in conflict with) the intended brand personality. For instance, it is very difficult for a brand to be perceived as compassionate if the corporate culture is ruthless. And if “responsiveness” is an intended brand personality attribute, it would be advantageous for “responsiveness” to be a core value of the organization. And how can a brand be perceived to be innovative unless it is the result of an innovative organization? It would be much more difficult for Southwest Airlines to be a fun airline to fly if it didn’t hire employees who are fun and who are encouraged to have fun in what they do. So yes, by all means make sure your employer brand aligns with your corporate brand on values and personality attributes.
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One comment
Roger Hicks
May 1, 2012 at 7:23 am
I am glad you included a photo of Southwest employees. I just flew Southwest and appreciate the humor they use aboard to make the standard safety announcement enjoyable. However, if they did not deliver on service, these messages might be percevied as careless and annoying. But, because they have exceptional record, they have the luxury of also having personality.
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