Employer Brand Management: Practical Lessons from the World's Leading Employers

Chapter 16Communication and Content Planning

‘So here's the plan. We crawl onto the shore, struggle over the rocks, learn to breathe, haul ourselves upright on our fins, learn to walk, head inland and build cities. Who's with me?’

Steve Way

Your EVP may be deeply rooted in organizational strategy, or it may simply be a means of summarizing your key recruitment communication themes. Either way, it should provide the platform for your communication and content strategy. The two most basic objectives of any communication strategy are to engage your target audience, and get your message across. The additional objective from an employer brand perspective is to ensure that the collective result of your communication is a more positive and distinctive brand image. This objective may partly be served by ensuring your communication content is consistently branded and framed, but ideally it should also mean that the content itself helps to reinforce consistent brand associations. For example, a series of employee focused stories may engage the target audience. It may help to personalize the corporation, making it more attractive to graduates. It may also serve to prompt an application. All of these are worthy communication objectives. However, it will fall short of effective brand communication if it doesn't also demonstrate and dramatize the key characteristics of the organization you want potential candidates to associate with you. We like the fact that Larry's story reveals a great ...