It’s been both fascinating and truly uplifting to witness the success of and engagement with make-up-free selfies via Facebook. Since late last year and with momentum picking up significantly of late, women across the land are taking shots of themselves without cosmetic adornment and posting them on the social networking site, in order both to draw attention to the symptoms of cancer and to invite charitable donations. The initiative has witnessed the enthusiastic participation of the great and the good, including Cressida Bonas, Jemima Khan and Michelle Keegan, as well as the simply good. In an era obsessed with appearance, apparent eternal youth and external beauty, there has been something rather touching about this demonstration of honesty, openness and transparency. It is perhaps this sense of openness that has prompted such willing and generous participation.
And this sense of the genuine is revealed too, earlier this month, in a telling survey on corporate brands conducted by Cog Research for Marketing Week. The research aimed to analyse the openness, trustworthiness and playfulness of all key UK brands. Top of the pile for their positivity and emotional connectivity were brands such as Cadbury, Andrex, Google and Fairy and Nivea. One of the key qualitative learnings from the research was that consumers did not respond positively to brands simply throwing messages at audiences, rather they reacted with much more enthusiasm to organisations they associated with generosity, charm and a human face (presumably one without make-up). And it is clear from the research that consumers can see through positioning which feels manufactured and artificial – although Coca-Cola’s strapline is ‘Open Happiness’, research participants questioned its trustworthiness. Whether in consumer or employer branding, then, authenticity and openness are key – and pivotal to delivering this, then, is insight.
Those faring less well included, at the bottom of the pile, the Liberal Democrats and RBS. The bottom ten places were dominated either by political parties or banks. It will be insightful to see which of the main political parties, over the next 15 months, is able to enhance its sense of trust and openness with the electorate – especially in the face of Nigel Farrage: whatever we might think of the UKIP leader, he is not afraid of who revealing who and what he is.
But who and what you are do not necessarily stay the same. What combination could be more natural, empathetic and enduring, for example, than Guinness and St Patrick’s Day? The umbilical cord was cut clean through earlier this month when the brewer took the decision not to participate in New York’s St Patrick’s Day parade. The reason? The parade had excluded gay and lesbian groups from participating. The decision cannot have been easy for the Guinness, but in reflecting where they are going, rather than where they have been, a brave call was made. This was echoed just this week when employees of Mozilla, the US technology firm, called for their CEO, Brendan Eich to resign. The result of incompetence or the financial downturn? Not a bit of it. Eich made a donation of $1,000 to the supporters of Proposition 7, which aims to ban same-sex marriage in California. Eich has responded by committing himself to confirming that Mozilla, ‘…lives up to its ideals of being an open and inclusive community’. But is Eich being one thing and saying something else? It will be interesting to see how the story develops, but it can hardly reflect well on the organisation’s employer brand and its ability to both recruit and engage.
In a month when even that cultural British icon, the pound, was re-invented and re-designed in response to the estimation that around 3% of pound coins in circulation are fake, the ability of employer brands to deliver openness and transparency is key. This month saw the number of vacancies in the economy rise to 588,000, up nearly 100,000 on 12 months ago. And the number of vacancies created as a result of skills shortages has doubled over the last four years to 125,000. The unemployment rate in January fell below 7% for the first time in a long time.
And if you want an indication of the value that can be created through the establishment and articulation of a brand which is open, honest and free from cosmetic intervention, look no further than Google. Research this month from Universum suggested, perhaps not with any significant amount of surprise, that Google is the most admired graduate employer the world over. Universum attributed this popularity down to both Google’s hugely positive consumer and employer brands, as well as ‘its transparency regarding job expectations’. You know what you are getting when you get into Google.
And if Google, perhaps like Jemima Khan, has less to fear than most about make-up-free transparency, its desire to create engagement through honesty and openness has created the world’s pre-eminent employer super brand. With Deloitte Consulting research out this month suggesting, on the one hand, that 75% of global CEOs feel they are struggling to attract and recruit top talent, but only 17% confident they have a compelling and engaging employer brand, the solution looks transparently clear.
Getting to the heart of your employee mindset 