‘Employer branding can do real harm so stop it’

| 11/06/2013 | 0 Comments

This interesting piece is an open letter to the members of the HR community generally engaged in what has commonly become known as employer branding. Written by Marketing Week columnist, Mark Ritson. His message to this large and rapidly growing community can be summarised in a single word: Stop.

“I appreciate that you are only doing what you are doing out of a misplaced sense of purpose and a naive miscomprehension of the branding concept but, please, you have to stop doing this employer branding stuff right now. It is terrible.

I know you are very proud of your efforts. Of the way you got your employees together into rooms with over-paid moderators and talked about what you believe were the values of the company. I understand just how happy you were with the long laundry list of ‘differentiating’ values that emerged as a result and which included killer concepts like ‘honesty’, ‘integrity’, ‘innovation’ and, of course, ‘supportive’. And I appreciate that you are very pleased with the little brochure that you produced which lists these words next to abstract images of children’s faces, firm handshakes and a woman sitting in an anonymous boardroom somewhere in America looking approachable (yet also empowered).

But, and you are going to have to trust me on this, it is all shit. Really, really shit. I know you mean well but by its very definition there are three very important reasons why what you are doing cannot be considered branding.”

To read the full article please click here

 

Source: (c) Marketing Week

 

Category: Editorial, Industry News

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