In an increasingly competitive marketplace, greater emphasis is being placed on brand image development as the basis for consumer discrimination. Advertising has a central role to play in developing brand image, whether at the corporate, retail or product level. It informs consumers of the functional capabilities of the brand while simultaneously imbuing the brand with symbolic values and meanings relevant to the consumer.
These two functions of advertising closely parallel the informational and transformational schools of advertising effects and theories on the central and peripheral routes to consumer persuasion. Such dichotomous approaches to explanation are unlikely to represent the reality of consumer choice in that brand image is likely to be formed by the simultaneous absorption of advertising messages based on both the functional and expressive capabilities of brands.
tify">Most studies on corporate branding and image have focused on the influence of external communication such as advertising and public relations. Less attention has been paid to the strategic role that internal communication and training can play. This study examines the internal communication and training functions at Singapore Airlines – one of the world's best international airlines – and how it is used strategically to enable cabin crew and ground staff to live its corporate values and consistently deliver on its brand promise of being 'a great way to fly'.
It shows that internal communication and training should be treated as the 'first frontier' in the battle for the customer: when it is founded on strong corporate values, internal communication and training can help transform key employees such as cabin crew into 'walking embodiments' of the core values, and key touch points into opportunities fo
fulfilling the brand promise. There has been considerable focus on how external communication – advertising, public relations, etc – helps corporations build a corporate image to differentiate themselves from competitors in an increasingly crowded marketplace.
This corporate image is important as it is a basis on which stakeholders choose to establish contact or business transactions with the organization and whether or not to attach good or ill will towards it. On the other hand, the role of internal communication and training in building corporate brands has received less attention in the academic literature. Internal communication merits close attention as employees may be the most important audience for a company's organizational communication and corporate branding efforts.
Indeed, employees are considered one of the most trusted information sources about an organization.
This is so because they embody the corporate brand and interactions between them and external stakeholders communicate the brand's values as much as (if not more than) traditional marketing communications. Perhaps nowhere is this more important than in service industries where employees are routinely the contact point between a company's internal and external environments and where the interactions or 'moments of truth' can deliver the brand promise and create a powerful image and experience among customers through appropriate behavior – or not.
Thus, service companies need to instill shared understandings of their brand values in the hearts and minds of employees to enhance brand-supporting behaviors.
Employees who are aligned with the company's values can help their organization attain a sustainable competitive advantage by giving external stakeholders experiences of these values. Thus, 'employees represent significant brand value and an organization's leadership has a responsibility to marshal this
opportunity.
Nonetheless, it is not good enough that employees understand the company's brand values and have the right skills if the goal is to be 'brand ambassadors': they also have to believe in and internalize the brand values through the enactment of appropriate behaviors. Effective corporate branding requires all company employees to adopt and behave according to a company's set of core values. Thus, strong corporate brands are associated with employees who are closely aligned with the core corporate values.
Values are especially important as they are at the core of the corporate brand, are critical to how service brands differentiate themselves, and can inspire behavioral changes, motivation and commitment.
For example, values can guide how an organization and its employees deal with the uncertainty that is inherent in uncontrollable or difficult events and thus predict most observable, 'artifactual' behavior. The synergy between corporate values, employees' effective enactment of these values and customers' appreciation of them is critical to the success of a corporate brand.
In fact, it is precisely the interactions between the value-providing behavior of a company's employees and the value-seeking behavior of customers that sustain ongoing communication between internal and external shareholders. When employees understand and are aligned with the core values, they have a better appreciation of their roles and higher commitment to delivering the brand promise, resulting in higher brand performance.
For example, shared values have been shown to explain employees' customer-directed service behaviors that go beyond their formal job descriptions or role requirements.
Conversely, it would be considerably more difficult for employees to enact a company's core values if there is a misalignment between the corporation's and employees' values.
The potential variability and highly personal nature of service brand offerings makes it critical for organizations to align staff behavior with core brand values.
Internal communication and training perform this alignment by fostering the internalization of brand values by employees, which bolsters their commitment to enact brand-supporting behaviors. In turn, these brand-supporting behaviors – when performed consistently over a period of time – ensure that customers (or guests) have the most personal and memorable experience of the brand's promise. The excellence awards are given across various industries such as finance, banking, pharmacy, BPO, technology and software etc.
What is disturbing a bit here is that the big agencies are not involved in creating communication on recruitment ads and you mostly find mid-sized agency do this of which some of them has become specialist in creating only recruitment-advertising campaign. The larger agency does not recognize this has a major revenue earner and exciting opportunity for their creative team to do inspiring work. Hence invariably designing the recruitment advertisement takes a back seat.
I only look forward with the introduction of Pink slip awards we get to spot larger agencies also create purposeful communication with strong idea for their clients and brands in the area of recruitment ads.
Lets also remember recruitment advertisements is one of the most powerful way of building the corporate image of the brand internally, externally and to the company stakeholders. While through advertising you are able to get prospects to respond. It is PR with the help of stories in HR is what helps company to establish credibility of their company.
Today more and more companies are looking for opportunities to be
present on exclusive and industry related stories on HR topics. With huge attrition rate and shortage of talent , stories on HR has been keeping corporate on their toes to bring in attractive and friendly HR polices to nurture and retain talent.
Being present in various articles and forums by brands is also being noticed by prospects to get better understanding of the corporate before one deicide to work with a particular company.
Since HR is a very important tool in building the corporate image of any organisation companies needs to be more pragmatic and innovative in evolving their PR strategy to attract and retain good talent and thereby strengthening the equity of the corporate brand in the employment market. A well thought out communication for a recruitment ad has direct bearing not only on the future prospects but also the stakeholders, business partners and employees within the company.
A good recruitment ad also builds credibility and image of the organisation so long as the company paints the correct picture and information of the organisation. The power of recruitment ads also helps in enhancing the position of the company in the prospects mind by maintaining the right style and tone consistently in their communication. This is where creative excellence for recruitment ads will play a major role as that will motivate clients to think out of box and get their brand across in the most unique and outstanding manner instead of churning out the run of the mill formatted ads.
Any piece of communication to attract talent must exhibit a good career path to entice the job seekers to respond. If that promise is delivered
through strategic recruitment ads we will be able witness more and more HR personnel pushing their communication partners that much extra to create advertisements and implement hard working PR strategy to deliver great value to the brand and motivate and attract quality talent to the organisation.
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