Employer branding A no-nonsense approach - CIPD

Part 10: Every picture tells a story
Although employer brands are about much, much more
than just graphics and design, there’s no getting away
from the fact that logos and symbols are integral
elements of all brands. Get them right, and they can
speak volumes for you.
I’ve always been impressed by the way the Civil Service
Fast Stream brand logo has been intelligently tweaked
and developed to keep it up to date, to send out the
right messages and avoid sending out the wrong ones
(see Figure 10).
It started life as a pen nib (very old-style Parker 51, very
Sir Humphrey) but these days it’s more of an arrow –
clean, simple and contemporary. And it neatly blows
away any whiff of elitism, any hint of Whitehall cobwebs.
And look at the way the Unilever logo has morphed
from something cold, hard and impersonal (very
corporate, very 1980s) into something softer and more
engaging. I know it’s the logo of a corporate brand, but
it arguably has more currency and greater influence in
the context of employment marketing than any other.
Figure 10: Logos and symbols as part of the brand
Maintaining impact
A great many people in a great many organisations
complain about information overload. Their inboxes
are overflowing; their heads are reeling with every
latest edict, diktat or communications initiative. In
research for a recent brand development programme
for a major UK and European retailer, senior managers
ruefully drew the distinction between information and
communication. They complained about an excess of
the former, and described how so much of the latter
just seemed to run into the sand.
The employer brand can address this. It can give
continuity, consistency and focus to what would
otherwise have been discrete initiatives. It can
become the driving force behind your organisation’s
intranet, and provide the consistent look and feel,
even the actual graphic templates, that will effectively
make all your day-to-day, tactical internal
communications expressions of the brand – and
contributors to its stature and recognition within the
organisation.
Employer branding