Book Reviews
The employer brand: Bringing the best of brand
management to people at work
Simon Barrow and Richard Mosley
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, UK; 2005; 214pp; 29.95; hardback; ISBN 0470012730
Journal of Brand Management (2007) 15, 150151. doi:10.1057/palgrave.bm.2550125;
published online 2 October 2007
The interface between brand manage-
ment and human resource management is
brilliantly explored here by consultants
Simon Barrow and Richard Mosley. They
structure their book into two main parts:
Part 1 presents the rationale for the intro-
duction of the employer brand concept
and outlines the key challenges that
emerged during this early phase, while
Part 2 is titled the How To guide,
comprising seven chapters detailing prac-
tical steps in such issues as positioning and
communicating the employer brand.
Author Simon Barrow and Tim Ambler of
the London Business School define the
employer brand as the package of functional,
economic and psychological benefits provided
by employment and identified with the
employing companythe main role of the
employer brand is to provide a coherent frame-
work for management to simplify and focus
priorities, increase productivity and improve
recruitment, retention and commitment.
Barrow goes on to describe the initial resist-
ance that the employer brand concept encoun-
tered from many HR professionals, who
perceived marketing to be an artificial and
manipulative practice. While this is clearly a
widely shared view of marketing and branding,
it would have been equally valid for the authors
to acknowledge that the HRM discipline is
hardly immune to manipulative practice.
A vivid example of the need for
nurturing an effective employer brand is
given in the opening chapter, where
150 2007 PALGRAVE MACMILLAN LTD 1350-23IX $30.00 BRAND MANAGEMENT VOL. 15, NO. 2, 150151 NOVEMBER 2007
www.palgrave-journals.com/bm
Sainsburys is held up as a case study in how
to do things wrong. The reference is to
Sainsburys television advertising in the late
1990s featuring John Cleese in hectoring
Basil Fawlty-mode, haranguing a store
employee. The authors view of this is that
the helpful and well meaning member of
staff involved appeared to be totally belit-
tled by Cleeses lecture on Sainsburys
pricing, and whatever the customer out-
take, it caused uproar among Sainsburys
140,000 people. From this unfortunate
episode, the authors pose a number of
questions: did the Sainsburys marketing
people show the original treatment to
anyone in HR or store management? Did
senior management even consider the
potential effect on employees? And, during
production did they test or show the final
film to any members of staff ? Perhaps
because of the internal controversy gener-
ated by the Cleese ad, Sainsburys went on
to become one of the first companies to
appoint an Employer Brand Manager.
Having justified the rationale behind
the employer brand concept, the majority
of the book then focuses on the concrete
steps that companies can take in order
to adopt an enlightened approach to
managing the marketing/HR interface.
Part II, the How To guide, is written by
Richard Mosley, who kicks off his section
of the book with a look at brand funda-
mentals. He notes wryly that branding
has become the snake oil of modern

management and that if you believe the
brand pundits, branding will cure all ills:
it will secure customer loyalty, drive
growth, increase profits, induce undying
employee commitment to the companys
cause, ward off the evil eye of critical
investment analysts, reverse national
decline, win elections and fill an otherwise
drab, mundane and irreligious world with
new hope and meaning. Its good to read
a book on branding where the delusions
surrounding the power of branding are so
eloquently acknowledged. But having
effectively made his point that we should
be suitably sceptical of exaggerated claims
regarding the impact of branding, Mosley
goes on to assert that if you strip away
the gloss and spin that tend to accompany
the branding bandwagon, the basic
fundamentals of brand management still
contribute real value to the firm. Some
of the major benefits inherent in an
employer brand proposition, for example,
include top quartile pay, a highly attractive
working environment and cutting edge
technology. These are clearly issues that
transcend the spin and superficiality that
are often associated with branding.
On many occasions this book will
make the reader reflect on their own
experience within the organisation for
which they work. When Mosley addresses
the question of peoples emotional attach-
ment to their employer, many dimensions
of this are noted: the inherent satisfaction
that is derived from the tasks that people
perform, the extent to which they feel
valued by their colleagues, and their belief
in the quality, purpose and values of the
organisation they represent. These are all
interesting issues that probably do not
normally receive their due attention from
most marketing departments.
Mosley also stresses the complex nature
of branding a service organisation, noting
that whereas the brand personality of
2007 PALGRAVE MACMILLAN LTD 1350-23IX $30.00 BRAND MANAGEMENT VOL. 15, NO. 2, 150151 NOVEMBER 2007
BOOK REVIEW
packaged products is largely driven by care-
fully constructed communication, the
personality of a service brand is far more
difficult to develop since it is deeply rooted
in the culture and behaviour of the many
different types of people to be found within
any organisation. This represents another
major rationale for the employer brand
proposition service organisations cannot
be branded from on high by just one
department. An intimate understanding of
the history and personality of service
organisations is a prerequisite to effective
development of their corporate brand.
For any doubters who might be reading
this book, Chapter 7: The Business Case is
intended to demonstrate the quantifiable
benefits of adopting the employer brand
concept as articulated by Barrow and Mosley.
This chapter seeks to demonstrate that good
employer brand management can help the
organisation secure key business objectives
such as lowering costs, increasing customer
satisfaction, and delivering higher than
average return on investment and profita-
bility. One gets the feeling that the authors
have honed this chapter (if not the whole
book) through having been confronted
during their consulting careers by stony-
faced finance directors and CEOs sceptical
of the supposed benefits of developing a
strong employer brand. It is certainly a well
argued and convincing case for organisations
to invest in the employer brand concept.
The authors round off this excellent text
with a couple of case studies illustrating
the benefits that have been reaped by two
companies that have actively embraced
employer branding, Reuters and Tesco. All
in all, The Employer Brand offers a
refreshing new perspective on brand
management, seamlessly weaving together
the different but related disciplines of brand
management and HRM.
Keith Dinnie
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