How Santa and benefits go head to head in the brand stakes

It’s that time of year when we’re supposed to be jolly, in a constant state of ‘ho ho hoing’. Eagerly anticipating a certain mythical being breaking and entering our homes, helping themselves to free food and leaving piles of multi-coloured plastic destined for land-fill within 12 months. It’s not my idea of fun.

bah humbug

But that’s just my point of view because, unlike most people I know, I’m very anti ‘Brand Christmas’. Which is perhaps a little hypocritical because I write copy for a communications consultancy that’s designed to get people engaged with brands.

But there’s a big difference. I truly believe people need the things I promote through my word-smithing. In my mind, pensions and benefits are really important – after all who’s going to be there for you when it comes to all those Christmases after retirement? Certainly not Santa Claus.

Problem is it’s harder to get people to understand the importance of a pension, life assurance or childcare vouchers. They’re not ‘sexy’ products like the latest iPad or designer trainers. Christmas is all about the things you ‘want’ – not necessarily what you ‘need’.

Everyone needs a pension, and they would really benefit from some of their company benefits (the clue’s in the name), so it’s important to make people believe in all their employer offers. A healthy pension will certainly keep you warmer in old age than that new winter coat you ‘had to have’ when last season’s was still perfectly serviceable.

So how do you make a benefits brand engaging – something people truly want to believe in? Well for me it all boils down to ‘Brand Belief’. How many employees don’t engage with their company benefits because they’ve forgotten what the company they work for stands for in the first place?

The most successful companies understand the importance of great branding – and the need to instil this throughout their business, in every interaction with their people, not just in how they engage with their customers.

Take Marks & Spencer for instance. Great branding on the high-street and in-store that’s reflected in their retail website, TV campaigns, careers and employee benefits sites. Everything works in synergy to remind employees they work for a company that cares about them as individuals as well as their customers and the environment.

Ideally, we like to look at ‘brand’ as a whole when talking to clients about a new pensions or benefits brand. Your benefits brand is simply one enabler of instilling your corporate brand throughout your organisation. Your benefits brand should support your people strategy and not be a standalone concept unrelated to the company culture (or the one you want).

We run Brand Believer workshops where we test brand concepts with employees. We often see the pieces slot together for the first time, for employees old and new, who might never have truly understood what the company’s brand stood for in the first place. The positive impact of re-enforcing a company’s brand message through internal communications campaigns can’t be underestimated.

After all Christmas is supposed to be when we think about others for a change - not the latest gadgets and gizmos you want to unwrap on your lap on the 25th December. Don’t let your brand suffer from lack of belief. When you come back to work in January, make it your New Year’s resolution to remind yourself and your employees what your company brand stands for and you might just see a few of your engagement wishes granted next year.

This article was written by Luke O’Neil, lead content creative, at Capita Employee Benefits.