Think about one of your favourite brands. There’s likely a one liner that springs to mind that you associate with them. What does that line say about them? What does it make you feel? Boom. That’s the power of a tagline. It says a lot in very few words.
Now think about what it's like to work for one of those brands.
Maybe “I’m lovin’ it” doesn't nod to the hard work and determination that it takes to power through a shift at one of the world’s most popular restaurants? “Just do it” might help customers tap into an athlete’s mindset, but it doesn’t speak to the opportunity for global impact and international collaboration you can have at a world renowned sportswear brand?
What makes the career opportunities at one athletics apparel empire stand out from the rest? On the flipside of the consumer brand tagline “Just do it” is the employer brand tagline “Move the world.” It speaks to impact, progressiveness and community. All while keeping the language true to what they’re known for. Now, I'm lovin’ that.
When you’re looking to attract top talent into your company, the ‘what’s in it for me’ goes beyond a cool logo and the products or services they provide to customers — there’s much more to company culture than that. Great companies (and cultures) are made by great people. And don’t you want to attract the best people into your organisation?
Now you know why you need an employer brand tagline alongside your consumer brand tagline, what actually makes a good one?
There are tried and tested techniques, methods and hours of ideation that go into landing on one. Here are three golden rules that go into creating a winning employer brand tagline: Make it ownable. Make it memorable. Make it emotional.
Make it ownable
You probably already know everything there is to know about the value your organisation brings to your customers. You might even be able to summarise it in a couple of sentences, or (even better) a couple of words. Understanding the value you provide to your people might be a slightly more complex task.
Creating a tagline that feels like it could only ever belong to your brand first takes a deep level of understanding of your culture.
How do people perceive you as an employer externally? How do you want people to perceive you as an employer externally? Why do people join? Why do people stay? What makes your offering to talent stand out? What organisational changes have impacted how people experience your culture? Getting clear on the answers to these questions will help you articulate what makes your company a great place to work and what makes you different.
AKA your Employee Value Proposition.
It’s the first step to creating a tagline that feels true to you.
Make it memorable
The most powerful taglines are simple, motivating, and stick in the minds of your audience. It’s about being clear and concise so your words cut through the noise.
When a potential candidate is scrolling through your social feed or your careers website, your words don’t just need to grab their attention, they need to sustain it. A tagline is often the first encounter people will have with your employer brand, so it needs to pique their interest just enough to show why they should read on.
Making your tagline memorable also means making it last. While a tagline you might use for a talent attraction campaign can be bold, challenging and more experimental, landing on your employer brand tagline is a longer term commitment to the positioning of your brand and culture. It needs to be made of strong stuff. It’s got to flex, stretch and evolve with you — the right balance of authentic to who you are now and aspirational for where you want to grow in the near future.
Make it emotional
A tagline helps a company communicate their value proposition in a way that resonates on a more emotional level. I’m not talking about bringing people to tears (although when a line hits the spot, our clients have been known to get goosebumps 😉) We’re talking about sparking a ‘wow, I want to be part of that’ reaction in potential talent.
We’re asking our audience — the talent market — to exchange their time rather than their money, arguably a far more valuable currency. That’s an emotional decision, not a transactional one. Your tagline can say something powerful about who you are as a culture, and what opportunities are open to talent beyond a solid starting salary and an appealing benefits package.
Your tagline wraps up your offering into something with personality, meaning, and it helps humanise your brand so future talent can better picture themselves working with you.
That’s all great in theory. Let’s see this thinking in action.
Take the EVP and employer brand we created for Healios — an organisation providing mental health, ADHD and Autism support services for young people and their families. Full of passionate and purpose-driven people, our research showed that diversity of thought is at the heart of everything they do. It’s how they drive innovation that’s actually changing the game in digital healthcare for the better. We crafted the line ‘Great Minds Don’t Think Alike’ as the centrepiece of their employer brand. Ownable, memorable, emotional. It didn’t just become a line that sits on top of external assets, it became a phrase that united people across the business, supporting retention by reminding them why they wanted to be a part of Healios’ mission and culture in the first place.
A tagline isn’t just a tool in your talent attraction toolkit, it’s an opportunity to tell the true story about who you are and what you stand for. Interested? We’d love to create a winning employer brand tagline for you.
