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FRESH FRIDAYS: Is it ever a good idea to compromise your company brand?

July 03, 2015
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This Friday we’re tackling the hot topic of branding and all its potential misdemeanours.  

A brand’s reputation largely depends on its current strength within the market and how that’s communicated externally. As we all know, this external reputation can have a knock-on effect on an organisation’s commercial gain and its ability to hire. So we asked the question, can compromising a company brand ever be a good idea?

Shaking it off…

Let’s take a look, for example, at the power of the female pop artist, Taylor Swift.  It’s intriguing that a global brand like Apple took a complete U-turn and bowed down to the demands of the songstress in order to maintain a strong, successful and very profitable relationship on both sides.

As a commercially savvy lady, Taylor knows her worth and power in the music industry at the moment. She is a brand in herself, and is obviously keen to protect her intellectual music property by standing by the value she feels it is worth. This shows the pure power of a strong brand,  which is something that big businesses are keen to showcase to attract top talent.

Branding the job hunt…

With a company’s brand holding so much value in terms of street-cred and reward, it’s crucial that it's protected by employees who live and breathe the brand’s culture.

In this buoyant job market candidates are all about the brand. They want to work for a company that they truly believe in and feel that they can relate to, and this is becoming an increasingly important factor when making decisions as to whether to pursue or accept an opportunity.

When a brand is going through a challenging time or being dragged through the mud, some candidates see this as a red flag to start to look elsewhere. This is often because these organisations have been portrayed in the market as a slightly more risky option to join due to the fluidity and uncertainty surrounding roles and team structure.

Turning things around…

However, even with bad press and changing landscapes, these organisations still maintain their desire to hire and build new teams to take them on their next phases of growth. Companies striving for strategic change are often keen to bring people on board with a different lens and innovative way of approaching their strategic problems.

So the importance of brand in taking on and retaining top talent shouldn’t be underestimated. The good news is that candidates with a pro-active and business-savvy ambition are often the ones who see struggling brands as a fantastic opportunity to make a positive change.

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