(~15-second read)
The gist: We remember the interactions––not your design, not your tagline, not your glossy style guide.
If companies stepped back and realized that the experiences their prospects, customers, candidates, and employees have are their brand, everything could change.
Strip away all the creative, fancy design, and complicated strategy.
By just focusing on creating the experiences that each of these groups wants––not the experiences they’re forcing in an attempt to drive revenue and cut costs––brand perception would dramatically change.
And lead to so much organic growth that traditional sales as we know it would become obsolete.
I have always preached that - at their core - all brands are relationships. This is especially true for employer brands. When you view brands through this lens, we can better manage brands because we have a lifetime of managing relationships of varying intensity.
Our family and closest friends are the most intense relationships. Co-workers and casual acquaintances and old classmates are less so. We even a relationship with the manager of the produce department where we shop or the barista at our favorite coffee shop; we know one another by sight and past encounters.
The same is true for employer brands. The most intense relationship is with current employees. Then former employees (whose memories of the relationship fade with time). Candidates have a tenuous relationship; basically what they see online or hear from their networks.
Focus on creating the experiences each of these groups want - as you prescribe - is an excellent way to nurture and strengthen those relationships.