Getting Employees to Advocate the Brand: Overlap and Collaboration Between Marketing and Human Resource Departments

Abstract

Given the complexity of brands and how dynamic they are, they can be challenging tomanage. Marketers spend so much energy and effort in figuring out how to impact,attract and retain customers that they often forget the people behind the brand, theemployees. Brands are created from within by employees because employee attitudesand behavior affect consumer´s perception of the brand and thus dictate the brand´sperformance. More attention has been paid to the impact human resource departmentscan have on influencing employee behaviour and align it with overall branding strategies.This thesis is based on interviews with five marketing managers and four humanresource managers who work for organizations that operate in the Icelandic economy.The research is based on understanding how marketing departments and humanresource departments can collaborate to create brand ambassadors. Nine semistructuredin-depth interviews were conducted, and open-ended questions were asked.Six themes emerged from the interviews. All six themes inherited approaches marketingand human resource management departments can collectively take to turn employeesinto brand ambassadors. The interviews highlighted the importance of marketing andhuman resource management departments collaborating by implementing strategiesthat include employees in branding processes, establishing an effective internalcommunications platform and rewarding employee work contributions. This researchproposes a model that conceptualizes how a relationship between marketing and humanresource management departments can create brand ambassadors.