In the grand scheme of corporate life, branding often feels like a marketing thing. It’s for designers, copywriters, and those awful people who use phrases like “brand equity” and “persona alignment” while standing around the Keurig. Meanwhile, the rest of the company goes about their business, blissfully detached from the company's well-crafted mission statements and LinkedIn posts.
The hard truth is that regardless of who you work for, you are the brand. Branding is more than logos and taglines—it’s how your company looks, speaks, and acts, despite your status or role.
The Brand Isn’t Just in the Marketing Deck
Yes, marketing sets the tone and lays out the guidelines, but a brand doesn’t live in a deck. It lives—or dies—based on the everyday actions of employees. Every email you send, every customer call you take, every Slack gif you drop contributes to your company’s reputation.
Think of the brand as your company’s shiny storefront window. It’s how the world sees you, and it was carefully arranged to make a strong impression. If employees don’t help keep that window clean—or, god forbid, they crack the glass—it doesn’t matter how beautiful the display is behind it.
Brand Ambassador? Nah Bruh.
You’ve probably laughed off the folks who opt into being brand ambassadors before. But if you’ve ever recommended your company’s services to a friend, shared a company post on LinkedIn, or even casually mentioned your workplace at a happy hour, you're doing it. Congrats on your ambassadorship. No T-shirt required.
The question isn’t whether employees represent the brand—it’s how well they’re doing it.
Customer-Facing Employees: If you’re in sales, support, or success, you’re basically the brand’s front line. Are you delivering on the promises marketing makes, or are you the bad experience that causes an analyst to downgrade the company in their report?
Internal Teams: Even if you’re not customer-facing, you’re still shaping the company culture. If your Slack channel reads like a scene out of Office Space, you might be off-brand.
Social Media Presence: Your LinkedIn profile should be more than a stream of humblebrags or a work anniversary graveyard. What and how you post reflects your company too. Maybe skip the next political rant or Drake meme.
How to Be a Better Brand Ally
So, how in the hell do employees embrace their role without needing their own PR team?
Know the Brand: You don’t need to memorize the mission statement verbatim, but understanding the company’s vibe helps. Are you an innovation-first disruptor or a “slow and steady wins the race” kind of brand? Act accordingly.
Live the Values: If your company says it’s all about teamwork, don’t ghost your coworkers on group projects. And if you preach sustainability, maybe don’t roll up to work in a coal-powered car.
Own Your Role: No matter where you are, how you handle challenges, treat colleagues, and communicate with customers all feeds into the brand. Be the vibe you want people to see in the company.
See Something, Say Something: Notice something that feels very off-brand? Say something. Branding thrives on consistency, and it takes everyone in the organization to keep things aligned.
Shared Responsibility
A brand is only as strong as the people behind it. While the marketing team might design the playbook, it’s up to everyone else to bring it to life…or at least not light it on fire.
So, if you’re tempted to wave off branding as someone else’s problem, remember that it's your brand too. Own it, live it, and maybe even have a little fun with it.