Put brand characters at the heart of your employer branding project

Brand characters (that illustrates or animated image that identifies to a brand) are becoming more prevalent in the B2B landscape. A key factor in the success of an employer-branding process, brand characters contribute to optimising the brand experience for employees and potential candidates.

A brand character personifies a brand. It is an element that can differentiate a company from its competitors as it becomes part of a company's design and language. Successfully executed, a brand character can go viral in social media.

Creating a brand character, however, requires an in-depth understanding of a company, its culture, its people and its personality. These were at the foundation of Xtra Mile's brand character effort for Matrix Global (a large offshore/nearshore professional IT services company) in Eastern European countries. The Rix Globy brand character had an immediate impact on target potential employees, even though the company itself was less known in the target market and competed with both global giants and veteran local companies in the IT sector.

Once Rix Globy was created, it became the proud owner of a Facebook page, which at first was not even 'related' to Matrix Global. It was simply a confused IT expert, unsatisfied with its job, asking social friends for tips on how to advance its career. When the brand character gained followers and readers and viewers became interested and curious enough, only then did Rix Globy announce a life changing event: the character started working for Matrix Global!

Through the entire project, the Rix Globy character served multiple purposes. On the one hand, and as part of the campaign’s targets, Globy was an excellent retention tool; even its name was created by the Matrix Global employees in an award-winning competition. On the other, its appeal generated a buzz in social media among potential employees. As a key element in the 360-degree employer-branding project, the image represents all the main attributes of the company’s brand – smart, energetic, sensitive and respect-seeking – all depicted in the various viral videos created with the character. At the same time, the image was widely used in the redesign of the company's offices (see figure) in the different countries, as well as in events and in the form of giveaways, further increasing the strong connection with the character.

New office design

Branded merchandise

Meet Sharon and the team from Xtra Mile, our Country partner from Israel, at World Employer Branding Day 25-27 April 2018.