The Proof is in the Beer

I’ve gotten hit with a couple of articles recently about the importance of having a strong employer brand. The articles define an employer brand as the brand you develop internally. Some of the articles talk about messaging, some hiring and onboarding, and others talk about what your team members do on social media. It varies.

I am persistently annoyed by these articles. They sting before I even start reading. It’s not that I disagree with the concepts they’re outlining; yes, it’s critical to create a consistent experience for your team members the same way you want to create a consistent, on-brand experience for your customers.

My issue is they make it sound like you have two brands—one in public and one in private. You don’t. You have one brand.

Your brand is the sum total of what you do, whether you do it inside your company or outside your company. That’s why as a purpose-driven business you have one Core strategy.

However, HR often gets tasked with things related to the team while marketing is tasked with building the brand externally. The problem is that you can quickly have your team on one page and your customers on another, which can result in anything from a disjointed, weaker brand all the way to a PR nightmare depending on how far things are off.

Let’s look at BrewDog for a moment.

This company had developed a strong, external brand with a good following. They’d positioned themselves as a brash upstart taking on faceless corporate brewers:

“BrewDog was born with the aim to revolutionize the beer industry and completely redefine beer-drinking culture. We’re determined to make a stand for independence, a stand for quality and stand for craft.”

So, we have independence, quality, and craft in their messaging. But the employees tell a whole other story in an open letter. In pursuit of growth above all else, they say the company cut corners on health and safety and created a “toxic” culture that left staff suffering from mental illness. Moreover, some said they feared retaliation even after leaving the company.

If we look at quality, they aren’t delivering on that value if they're cutting corners on health and safety, nor do they appear to be living up to their commitment to craft through what they’re forging in their “toxic” culture. They’re also undermining independence if people are worried they’re following them like a dark, beer dripping rain cloud.

BrewDog now has a two-faced brand which grossly undermines trust internally, a rot that will absolutely undermine trust externally. I’ve already seen them blasted on social media, and their road to recovery as a mission-driven brand will take time and cost money.

Your marketing and people teams should be working together to keep things aligned around your purpose. For example, you have one Core strategy which means you also have one set of values. Your values act as a filter for behavior; how you act should be consistent internally and externally. Said another way, you either have integrity or you don’t; you don't have it sometimes.

Aligning your organization around one Core strategy centered on your purpose boosts engagement, increases consistency, and closes the dreaded messaging / action gap. Having this level of focus is one of the benefits of running a purpose-driven business.

Perhaps this is the week to have HR and marketing talk to eliminate any misaligned strategies or tactics so you don’t have to mop up a PR nightmare.

You Have One Brand. Period.

The Proof is in the Beer