How to Activate your Employer Brand

We see it a lot.

Organisations pour resources into building an authentic EVP. It all goes into a lovely, neat document and then, poof. It sits gathering dust. Because documents alone don’t attract and retain employees — it’s how you activate and energise an employer brand that makes an impact.

Let’s dive into what a great activation strategy looks like using our work with VCA.

VCA's Employer Brand

VCA is a leading veterinary care organisation in the US.

With the help of 35,000 employees, they provide world-class medicine to around 4.5 million beloved pets per year. 

Our challenge was to help VCA attract, engage and retain talent whilst facing:

1. New competitors in the market
2. Misconceptions about VCA being “corporate” as part of Mars
3.  An industry-wide talent shortage

We built out the EVP - using insights to fix misconceptions and show the advantages of being part of a large and trusted network - and then created a powerful proposition line: “The future of veterinary medicine is in our hands.”

But the real magic? That was in the activation stage.

So, how did we activate it?

Internal Activation

The goal with internal activation was to get people involved.

VCA wanted employees to understand the brand and bring something to it - so it wasn’t just words on a page or pretty pictures.

We provided things that could be used immediately, like:

 - Customised Teams backgrounds
 - LinkedIn header graphics
 - Intranet and newsletter graphics
 - Workday pop-up notification
 - And a launch video called "The Story We're Writing together"

We also invited employees to share their stories internally and externally.

And we created onboarding GIFs to welcome new recruits, which they could share with their social networks. LinkedIn is full of posts about people getting new jobs - this was a way of standing out and making those posts VCA-branded.

To keep the messaging consistent, we developed an employer brand toolkit to guide people on how to use the assets.

External Activation

The goal with external activation was to find the right people on the right platforms with the right message — not just cast the net everywhere and hope for the best.

And knowing that 60% of people look at a company’s social media when applying for a role, we prioritised a rebrand of VCA's social channels, making sure to include EVP-specific content.

But as any social media manager worth their salt knows: being on social media is like being at a party.

You don't want to be the guest no one wants to talk to because they only talk about themselves. Similarly, you don't want to be the account no one follows because you constantly bombard them with job ads. That's why we made sure to split up more "salesy" recruitment content with valuable stuff people could learn from.

We also looked at digital advertising campaigns, targeting specific audiences with personalised messaging that built a story and served different ads depending on the person.

Employee stories were used in blogs, videos, and imagery, with a mix of UGC and more polished content that drew on advocates' stories to bring the EVP messaging and the brand to life.

VCA relaunched the careers website to include all that content.

The Results

After the launch in 2023, VCA saw incredible results:

 - A 143% increase in unique visitors on the careers site year on year
 - A 67% increase in career website dwell time
 - Over twice the number of applications
 - Campaign cost per apply-click was $106.18

Here’s the thing...

Building an employer brand is just the start.

The real magic happens when you activate. And VCA's story shows the power of a great activation strategy that empowers employees and potential candidates through targeted content.

The results prove that with the right approach, organisations can use the activation stage to meet their hiring goals — and save a ton on recruitment costs.