Understanding Gen Z: what the next generation is looking for in an employer
Charlotte Jackson
6minutes read
Generation Z is doing a lot to shape the future of work. And for recruitment and employer brand teams within the Millennial category and beyond, it can be hard to pin down exactly what’s needed to nurture this current and future talent pool.
In terms of generational shifts and experiences, they’re the most unique of the century, having grown up with internet connection as standard.
In this article, we’ll take a deep dive into the mindset of Gen Z in the context of employment and recruitment.
Who is Gen Z?
Born between 1997 and 2012, Gen Z aren’t the mystery that the media portrays. In fact, their motivations, wants and needs are very reasonable. They are also paving the way for raised workplace expectations and improved benefits packages for every generation.
Gen Z’s ideal workplace looks vastly different to those of some earlier generations. Having a family isn’t the top priority. Work-life balance is key. Salary is only one of many other critical factors.
They are the generation causing waves not seen before in the world of work, and now employers are having to quickly learn how to attract and retain this all-important workforce of the future. With Gen Z accounting for around 30% of the world’s population, they are predicted to represent 27% of the entire workforce by 2025.
What makes Gen Z different?
Working conditions across the world have greatly evolved over the years, reforming through both legislation and the needs of the global population. While many prior generations have been exposed to very distinct periods of time, and have seen the gradual progression of society and technology, Gen Z has been raised in a world that centres around technology in almost every aspect of life.
The older portion of Gen Z has been witness to the 2008 recession and the COVID-19 pandemic. Gen Z places salary as a lower priority than other generations, and are not worried about taking risks despite the financial turmoil of these events.
Gen Z wants to be challenged, nurtured and pursue interesting work that means something to them. Unless they have the job of their dreams or are working for a company that has a mission to do great things in the world, without purpose, Gen Z is likely to move on from one role to the next, until they are able to find the right fit.
They know they can’t undo the damage that has been done to the environment and the world, but by working for a company that has sustainable and ethical CSR and ESB policies, it can help to shine a positive light on their employer.
Additionally, diversity and inclusion have become deciding factors of whether a Gen Z candidate feels comfortable working for an organisation, something that has had much less focus in older generations.
Insights on Gen Z attitudes
The unique circumstances that Gen Z experienced as they made their journey to the workplace have not only given them a distinct set of priorities but have also shaped their attitudes at work.
Their lives are wholly integrated with technology
To Gen Z, being connected to what’s going on in the world and the people they care about is a must. They are more likely to be receptive to new tools and software, and could help companies find more digital ways to reduce manual processes.
They are always learning
As one of the most formally educated generations to date, Gen Z thrives on learning new information in engaging ways. If they don’t know how to do something, they’re more likely to find the answers on Google or watch a tutorial on Youtube first than ask peers.
If they’re not learning or bettering themselves, they can feel stagnant, restless and unfulfilled so it’s important to keep professional growth and gaining skills a high priority within their working hours.
They won’t stick around just for financial security
We’ve seen a seismic shift in the rights of workers over the last half a century. But to this day, there are still employees who find themselves stuck being unhappy in roles where they aren’t treated correctly. This is often because they are responsible for their families or have other financial commitments.
If a Gen Z employee is unhappy, they won’t stick around and hope that things will improve – regardless of whether they are in a good financial position or not. Their entrepreneurial spirit will carry them off to the next opportunity or they will start up a venture on their own in a freelancing capacity. It’s important that a company’s culture, values and mission align with a Gen Z employee’s expectations, as well as the perks and benefits.
What are Gen Z’s needs, wants and expectations in the workplace?
To capture the attention of burgeoning Gen Z talent, it’s important employers are doing all they can to satisfy the needs, wants and expectations of this savvy new wave of workers.
What does Gen Z need?
To have interesting and fulfilling work
Financial stability but not at the expense of their mental health
A supportive culture where work-life balance is appreciated
Flexibility in how, when and where their work is delivered
To continually learn and grow, professionally and personally
To have shared values and attitudes with their employer
The opportunity to give back to their community or causes they care about
Logical pay progression based on merit, skill and contribution
Trust and freedom to earn more holiday or prolonged periods of leave
What are Gen Z’s expectations?
Inclusion and diversity to be a priority for their employer, who can effectively demonstrate their commitment
A personalised employee experience and journey, based on individual goals as well as their wider team’s
Incentives for pay rises, progression and improved quality of work
Transparency and openness within the workplace environment
Having the option of hybrid working, but having the opportunity to regularly meet with colleagues in-person – face-to-face interaction is still important to Gen Z
How to recruit and retain Gen Z
While we can’t generalise an entire generation, recruitment experiences have seen the etiquette between candidates and potential employers change somewhat with the Gen Z population. Here we explore what this change could mean for your recruitment strategies…
Move fast, communicate often
They are keen to move fast and don’t want to be sitting around waiting for responses from interviewers. If your interview process is unclear, long or multi-staged, your Gen Z candidate will disengage and move on to the next opportunity. The key here is to keep communication clear, consistent and frequent.
Highlight support network
While one of the most educated generations, Gen Z is acutely aware of the knowledge and skills gaps they may need for roles. If the training and support they’ll receive on-the-job aren’t made clear from the outset, they are also likely to disengage.
Opportunities to go global
A desire to travel is something that has been strongly ingrained in most generations, but Gen Z is set to make it more commonplace than it has ever been before. If a global company firmly aligns with their mission and values, another big plus would be opportunities to transfer to other disciplines in different parts of the world – exposing them to new cultures as well as new areas of the business.
Put mentorship programmes in place
Training and routes for progression are valuable to Gen Z, but having someone they can go to with any questions or advice is invaluable. Gen Z has incredible gratitude for someone that takes the time to help them, so having a dedicated mentor will both be beneficial for them and for succession planning within the business.
Regular recruiter training
The employer brand experience starts with your recruiter, whether that’s an in-house person or an external company. If they aren’t receiving regular training or check-ins, there could be something going wrong at the very first hurdle.
Is your employer brand ready to go to market?
Employer brand teams have a big mountain to climb when it comes to realigning recruitment strategies to meet the needs of Gen Z – though many are already making the changes. It’s important to get real-world feedback on your campaign ideas and approaches, whether that’s through market research or internal surveys with existing Gen Z employees.
In order to snap up top talent quickly, the right employer brand strategy must include an agile approach to brand content production. Providing the right central employer brand portal can play a big role in meeting the demand for marketing materials, with official assets and content design templates available – so teams can create infinite digital, video, social, print, email assets and more means global teams can quickly adapt content for different markets and cultures.
Ultimately, brands must act fast, and be on-brand in their messaging, if they expect to become the employer of choice for Gen Z.
What is ethical consumerism and why should you care?
Papirfly
7minutes read
Consumers today have never been more conscious of where their products come from, the impact of their purchases and the conditions of the employees working across their favourite brands.
As well as wages and working environments, customers are also paying close attention to where companies source materials, where goods are manufactured, as well as a brand’s values and commitments.
This ethical consumerism is such a great consideration for shoppers today – whether B2B or B2C – that customers are voting with their wallets. They are buying from companies that align with their personal values or demonstrate certain ethics, instead of the companies they may simply already be familiar with.
What is ethical consumerism?
Every product or service you provide has an impact on the world. A growing number of consumers realise this and want to buy from organisations that have a more positive influence on certain social and environmental issues.
This phenomenon is called ethical consumerism, and is a purchasing practice that has been gaining momentum and popularity in recent years all over the world. To illustrate just how prominent this market is, recent reports suggest that it’s now worth over £122 billion in the UK alone.
Beyond the environment and employee working conditions, ethical consumerism is a broad term that can encompass a range of things.
Ethical consumerism can encompass whether or not a company…
Tests on animals
Uses sustainable materials
Supports what they say they do
Uses animal products
Although many factors have contributed to the boom in ethical consumerism, one of the primary reasons for this seismic shift in customer behaviour is down to the rise of social media.
These platforms are home to billions of users, all following, researching and discussing their favourite brands every single day. And, as word spreads fast on these platforms, a single post shining a spotlight on a company’s unethical practices could quickly gain traction. With sites such as Glassdoor offering current and former employees to anonymously review companies, it can also affect your ability to attract the right people.
Why is ethical consumerism important for your brand?
As well as benefiting the world, incorporating policies and actions that appeal to the ethical consumer can have several direct benefits to your brand.
Encourage brand loyalty
Many of the world’s most well-known brands grow and succeed because they encourage people to come back and purchase, time and again. Repeat custom rarely happens naturally, and more often than not hinges on a brand developing a trusting relationship with its customers.
Fostering meaningful buyer relationships isn’t something that takes just one action of goodwill. However, by aligning your corporate values with your customers’ expectations, and becoming more responsible as a provider of goods or services, you help lay a solid foundation from which to build a loyal customer base.
To highlight how valuable brand loyalty can be for your business, consider that 50% of loyal customers will make more purchases with their preferred companies, according to Hubspot.
Bolster your reputation
Although the ethical market is growing, this paradigm shift in consumer behaviour has also brought about a rise in ‘corporate boycotting’. This is when consumers avoid specific companies or products because they fail to meet certain common standards or expectations.
By catering to the ethical consumer in your shop, you can work to meet the rising expectations of prospects and help avoid the negative impact on sales and brand reputation a boycott could bring.
Although the severity of corporate boycotts can vary, sportswear titan Nike was at the centre of a labour controversy all the way back in 1990 that damaged the brand so much that it caused the company to completely rethink how it operated and presented itself on the world stage.
Future-proof your brand
Year on year, ethical shopping continues to make up a larger and larger portion of the market, as individuals become more aware of their impact on the world around them.
Moreover, as Gen Z, one of the most ethically conscious cohorts enters the workforce, this consumer movement is unlikely to slow down.
By taking steps to become a more responsible brand, you help ensure your shop remains appealing to customers today and tomorrow.
3 brands accommodating the conscious consumer
With customer sentiment continuing to evolve, countless brands have made great strides in the way they operate and market themselves.
To give you some inspiration and guidance on how you can become a more ethically-minded company, here are three of our favourite examples.
To do this, the brand uses low-impact materials, rescued deadstock fabrics and repurposed vintage clothing. Beyond sustainability, the retailer is also committed to providing a safe and comfortable working environment for its garment workers, building its own factory in Los Angeles to make this a reality.
Launched in 2009, the retailer’s ethics resonate with customers, with Reformation being profitable every year since 2016, $150 million in 2019, and more than doubling to $350 million in 2023.
2. Salesforce
Salesforce, a global leader in cloud-based CRM, demonstrates that ethical consumerism isn’t just for B2C brands. The company has embedded sustainability and social impact into its DNA – turning responsibility into a competitive differentiator for its B2B offering.
Referring to the planet as a “Key stakeholder”, Salesforce reached net-zero residual emissions across its entire value chain and powers its operations with 100% renewable energy. It further underlines the value in their Sustainability Cloud solution to help enterprise customers track and reduce their own carbon footprints, effectively turning ESG reporting into a shared value.
This values-first approach resonates deeply with modern business buyers, positioning Salesforce as a tech partner that delivers both innovation and integrity – earning it continued growth, industry trust, and long-term customer loyalty.
3. Patagonia
Last, but by no means least, is Patagonia. This trailblazer in sustainable outdoor apparel, has long positioned ethical consumerism at the core of its business. The brand doesn’t just talk about responsibility – it embeds it into every layer of its operations.
From pioneering the use of recycled materials to launching the Worn Wear program, which extends product life through repairs and resale, Patagonia champions circular fashion. It allocates 1% of sales to environmental causes and has even gone as far as transferring ownership to a trust and nonprofit, ensuring that profits are used to fight climate change and protect undeveloped land.
This unwavering mission has earned Patagonia a loyal following of conscious consumers, with annual revenues topping $1.5 billion and continued growth driven not by trends, but by values.
How to embrace ethical consumerism
Because ethical consumerism is such a broad and varied topic, there are dozens of ways your business can cater to the ethical consumer – from changing the way you ship your goods, to the way you front your brand in the public eye.
Reduce your brand’s carbon emissions
One way to meet customer expectations is to reduce your carbon footprint as a store. While there are many ways you can approach this problem, we have selected a handful of simple potential solutions you may want to try:
✅ Install energy-saving bulbs in-store ✅ Ship orders to the same address together ✅ Turn off the air-con when it’s not needed ✅ Switch lights off overnight when the store is closed ✅ Encourage employees to cycle or walk to work ✅ Set up a customer recycling scheme to safely dispose of old goods
Even making microscopic changes to the way you operate, such as favouring digital receipts and printing documents double-sided, can all help reduce your emissions and create a more eco-friendly image for your brand.
Align corporate values with corporate actions
Another way you can embrace ethical consumerism is by ensuring your corporate values align with the actions your shop takes.
For example, if your brand pledges to reduce its impact on the environment, but keeps all of its lights on overnight, people may feel as though you aren’t taking your corporate social responsibility seriously. This, in turn, can quickly harm your reputation.
Take some time to ensure your values correlate. If this means reducing the scale of your commitments to make sure your enterprise can actually achieve what it has set out to do, this will be better for your brand than overpromising and underdelivering.
As well as that, you should also ensure your values are easily found online or across your social platforms, as hiding this information away could seed distrust. Most importantly, your employees need to be able to be given online resources understand your values and ethical goals, as well as talk about them – whether verbally or in marketing materials.
Educate your customers
A third way of catering to ethically-minded customers is by using your reputation and platforms, such as your social pages or blog, to educate prospects on issues pertinent to your brand.
Tell people why you support what you do, and the steps you will take to achieve your desired goals. By committing to causes publicly, you help build trust with new and existing customers, while also raising awareness for good causes and charities.
Naturally, content is crucial in spreading the word about your brand’s values online and in-store. However, as campaigns and charities come and go often, enlisting the expertise of a third-party agency to produce assets may not suit your budget or timescale.
Bringing content production in-house is often seen as unworkable too, as the content creation process is traditionally time-consuming, and would likely clash with other employees’ responsibilities. As well as this, building branded visuals takes skills your team may not have access to.
Readying your brand for an ethical future
With customers more aware of social and environmental issues than ever before, ethical consumerism has seen a boom in popularity in recent years, and is a core consideration when building brand equity with customers.
Although this consumer movement may present a prime opportunity to grow the trust and authenticity of your brand in the eyes of your target audience, it’s important to be clear and honest when making commitments.
While there are many facets of this more conscious form of shopping, content is crucial in demonstrating your pledges to becoming a more responsible business.
Whether B2B or B2C, creating signage, social media content and visuals for the web can be a costly and time-consuming practice, especially if you spend your budget on asset reproduction rather than high-powered creatives to articulate your commitments.
Building captivating visuals that showcase your ethics doesn’t have to be a grand investment in time or money. By providing teams with on-brand digital assets and templated content creation working together, you can scale content production without any design expertise.
With such a demand from your audience to hear the right message, it’s key you communicate authentically and consistently so customers know your ethics align with theirs – in every single message!
Seasons come and go. And with them, they bring a new promotion for retail marketers to focus on. The challenges that come with holidays such as Halloween, Black Friday, Christmas and New Year are intense, and adequate preparation can’t be overstated.
Despite these periods being some of the most chaotic times of the year, they are also the ones filled with the most opportunity. If teams are able to harness the best of the physical and digital world in the following ways, and keep their cool during what seems like a never-ending cycle of production, success will be on the horizon.
Pre-peak season
By taking the time to consider your next steps, you can lay a strong foundation for success and give your teams the preparation they need to succeed.
Prepare your marketing and influencer strategies
Seeding contact with influencers early on is key to building relationships, but remember to have a backup plan. During the time between this initial contact and peak period, a lot could happen. For instance, if your chosen influencer(s) get themselves into hot water with the press, you’re going to want to find a replacement pronto.
Basing your marketing strategy around your creatives is a no-brainer, but ensuring this creative lands well with your audience will be where the challenge lies. Getting your agency to conduct focus groups on your messaging and how well it lands in the current climate could prove invaluable. As with influencer strategies, be conscious of any factors that could change between this initial creative sign-off and go-live and always be prepared for the unexpected.
Book in customer support training
As shopping activity spikes, so will your customer service contact. Automated messenger bots can help to delay human contact and gather information for when a shopper is put through, but it can also cause frustration.
Whether it’s improving your AI messenger strategy or giving group training to your support team, they are going to face almost every type of problem over the peak period and they need to be prepared for every scenario.
Remember to set parameters with what customer service leads can authorise too, if a 10% discount is going to soothe an angry customer, you should assess which de-escalation strategies are worth the investment.
Incentivise loyal customers
While loyal customers might seem like the least likely group you need to encourage to spend, you need to ensure another brand doesn’t distract them with an offering shinier and more appealing than your own. Reward them for their loyalty, whether that’s through a discount code, increased loyalty card points or early access to sales.
Develop cart abandonment strategies
The bane of any e-commerce marketer’s existence. While there are several creative ways to keep shoppers progressing their purchases, the best piece of advice is simply to reduce the number of clicks it takes to get them through the checkout.
Define warm lead strategies
While abandoned carts are a sad sight for sales, they provide a second opportunity to engage with the customer on a truly individual and personalised level. Email marketing reminding them of their abandoned items can help give them a nudge, but it won’t always be enough to convert them.
Ensure you take extra care with your email marketing to entice these individuals back to your website.
Establish re-engagement strategies
Have avid shoppers fallen off the radar? Promote your flash sales in advance of the peak period and bring them back to your website to remind you of why they fell in love with your brand in the first place. Those who have a positive experience are more likely to keep you in mind when the next promotion season comes around.
Likewise, make sure they’re familiar with any new updates, such as new collections, website features, payment types and delivery options.
Finalise offers and promotions
Peak season will be a time of agility, so completing as much testing as possible prior to the season hitting will help give you a solid foundation for your offers and promotions. It’s much harder to replicate past successful strategies now that the economic landscape has changed so significantly, so keep this in mind.
During peak season
With the groundwork laid, it’s now time to execute your strategy. Stay vigilant, monitor real-time trends and be ready to adapt to changing circumstances at the drop of a hat in order to increase your odds of success.
Keep one eye on competitors
If it’s not someone’s job to check your key competitors’ social and website feeds every day, it needs to be now. While we’re not suggesting you copy anything they’re attempting, you may be able to piggyback off a bad experience a customer has had, generate counter-promotions or discounts, or adapt your social media strategy.
Use design templates to stay reactive
Brand Activation Management tools such as BAM by Papirfly™ are trusted by retail marketers across the world to create, edit and share digital, social, video, email and print materials in a matter of minutes. Infinite on-brand creations, delivered by your in-house team, no design skills needed.
Use empathy mapping with customer service reps
Some of your best marketing insights will come directly from your customers. Introduce a logging system where representatives can provide interesting points directly to marketing and sales teams.
Stay on top of topical trends
Twitter and Tiktok are going to be a goldmine for content, so make sure one of your social execs is all over it. Ensure you have the breathing space to accommodate ad-hoc projects from them too, otherwise their energy and recommendations will be futile.
Use influencer discount codes to monitor the effectiveness
Trending sales or local factors could influence location-specific marketing. They may have on-the-ground insights that aren’t freely available at the head office level.
Maximise conversion rates
Your website will be the go-to ‘storefront’ for many customers, so it’s important those abandoned baskets are kept at a minimum by making the buying process as easy as possible.
Offer digital receipts to customers
A basic but powerful move. If you can get your in-store customers to take a digital receipt, you can ask them if they would be willing to receive marketing offers and promotions from you. It’s a helpful gesture for them and a beneficial first-party data collection strategy for you.
Post-peak season
As sales activity calms a little, it’s important to use the momentum of the promotional seasons as an opportunity to create long-term brand loyalty.
Offer additional points for purchases during the quieter period
Shoppers who signed up for loyalty and points schemes over peak periods may have less desire to spend once the season is over. Encourage purchases post-peak by offering double or triple points on sales during a specific timeframe.
Follow-up with customer experience surveys incentivised by a prize draw
This will be one of your key testing factors for how the peak period went from a customer perspective. When sending out the survey, be sure to communicate how many questions there are, how long it will take and the prize that’s up for grabs.
POS replacement and digital updates
Physical and digital points of sale in stores should be ready to go long before the season is over, however, this isn’t always realistic and sometimes logistics can get in the way.
Having BAM by Papirfly™ in place will help your teams get signage printed quickly without the need for head office to physically send anything out. Digital signage can be created and distributed to digital screens all from within the portal.
It’s never too early to plan for next year’s peak period…
Get ahead of the chaos and take ownership of your retail marketing strategy. Discover a single tool that can do it all.
Give your teams freedom to create infinite in-store signage, website, social, email, video assets and more, all on-brand and delivered in minutes
Integrate BAM by Papirfly™ with your PIM system and easily update signage and brochures with accurate information
Localise promotions with regional or country-specific data
Store and share assets with teams across the world
Brand Activation Management and your business: how to take control of your brand
Papirfly
15minutes read
The work of a marketer is never done. Or at least it feels that way. Each brand faces unique challenges in its short and long-term strategies and these challenges have been somewhat heightened by the significant changes that have taken place in the world over the last few years.
Teams aren’t getting the materials they need, or quickly enough. Too much already-limited budget is being spent with external agencies. In-house teams are stressed, stretched and unable to keep up with demand.
If this sounds familiar, it might be time to transform how the world engages with your brand – the answer is BAM by Papirfly™. It puts a whole suite of centralised tools in place to easily and effectively communicate your brand identity to your audiences across the globe.
What is Brand Activation Management?
First, let’s explore what brand activation is. In essence, it’s providing a distinct brand experience for your audience and customers through the brand and marketing activities you undertake. It’s making your brand known and increasing awareness.
Your brand marketing encompasses the many ways you actively promote and communicate your brand across your various channels. Brand activation is about how this creates a deep, emotional link to your audience.
Pretend for a moment that your brand is a lump of coal – solid, but not at its full potential – brand activation is the lighter fluid and the spark that helps ignite your brand for everyone to see. This can be achieved by a number of brand activation strategies and techniques, such as:
Experiential marketing
Digital marketing
Social media promotions and competitions
In-person events
Promotional campaigns
In-store marketing
Sponsorships
Sampling/taster events
Brand activation also plays a key role in improving your brand equity. Employing these techniques goes a long way to developing an attachment to your brand identity among your customers and the wider public, and this enhanced familiarity increases the value attached to your brand.
Brand Activation Management (BAM) is therefore how you organise and utilise all available assets you need to ensure the consistency, frequency and adaptability required to achieve the recognition and appreciation of consumers, as well as your employees, potential recruits and the public at large.
Brand presentation is often at risk of instability. People involved in your brand management might have their own interpretations of what your messages are meant to say. Imagery gets tweaked, the tone gradually alters… before you know it, your brand has morphed into something you definitely didn’t intend.
What can BAM software actually do?
Effective Brand Activation Management software, such as BAM by Papirfly™, is a single source for your teams across the globe to create, manage, store and share brand assets.
In-house teams can deliver an infinite amount of digital, video, social, email and print assets without needing any design skills
All assets created are done so using pre-defined templates with built-in rules, so that every creation is 100% on-brand, all of the time
Assets can be easily localised using region-specific imagery and text
A dedicated ‘educate’ section contains all the brand tools and documents employees need to engage with it on a deeper level – this empowers employees to play a greater role in understanding how your brand is presented and projected to your audiences
An integrated DAM system that allows for easy storage, organisation and access of all brand assets – teams can access the assets relevant to their team, country or sub-brand, as well as edit existing materials stored in the DAM
Brand activation work is taken in-house, reducing the cost and lengthy turnaround times associated with using agencies or dedicated design departments
The key features of BAM by Papirfly™ can be broken down easily into four categories:
A trusted brand management system is critical in presenting a unified message about your brand, ensuring all consumers are never confused as to what your missions, visions and characteristics are.
In this deeply competitive landscape, your brand is what sets you apart and drives customers to choose you over other brands. Brand Activation Management is the key to a stable, powerful brand across your entire company, anywhere in the world.
What is brand asset management?
Brand asset management helps to preserve, manage and communicate your brand DNA to your various audiences by organising your available brand assets. Your primary audience is likely your customers, but may also include employees.
Keeping all brand assets in a single space is vital to ensuring all marketing uniformly follows your unique attributes as a brand and company. This allows audiences to build familiarity with your brand and recall it effectively.
Inconsistencies lead to a confusing picture of who you are as a brand, making it less likely people will forge a lasting, meaningful connection with it. Above all else, an effective brand asset management system should go a long way to eliminating discrepancies in your brand identity.
It might take 5-7 impressions of a brand for customers to truly identify and recall it – your brand asset management software is vital to ensuring the same overarching messages and values are projected across all these encounters with your branding.
Where brand asset management differs from Brand Activation Management is based on scope. Brand asset management concentrates on the organisation and storage of your unique assets for your whole team to access.
Brand Activation Management incorporates this, but takes it further. Your teams are given a platform to rapidly create studio-standard marketing materials using your assets, ensuring everything you output is consistent with your values and the culture of the audience it is directed towards.
Brand Activation Management vs. Digital Asset Management
Digital Asset Management, or a DAM as it’s commonly known, is a digital storage area for files, documents and marketing materials. It’s an easy and effective way of giving multiple people in an organisation access to everything they need.
Brand Activation Management has a built-in DAM that allows global teams to access the content that’s relevant to them. They can share directly with colleagues from within the DAM, approve or edit marketing materials, and do this from anywhere in the world. Beyond this, BAM is also a creation, management and education tool. We’ve listed some key comparisons below:
Is a DAM more powerful with BAM?
Absolutely. A DAM on its own is simply an online storage system for all your files, resources, marketing and downloads. BAM provides its own powerful DAM, along with all the tools your employees need to create their own content at speed and at scale. Teams can localise content, create new marketing materials, manage campaigns and approvals and so much more – all for a fixed annual licence fee.
Why is Brand Activation Management critical for businesses?
With crowded brand, product and service landscapes, it’s increasingly harder for organisations to set themselves apart. Clearly defined, powerful and iconic brands are imperative in appealing to customers and informing them as to why they should choose you over everyone else.
The power of your brand in establishing a true, tangible connection with your audiences is increasingly valuable at a time when many businesses in your industry will provide the same core services and products as you – it’s how you distinguish yourself and create that indispensable emotional tie that keeps them coming back.
Brand Activation Management helps companies achieve this degree of brand recognition and familiarity in many ways.
Brand consistency
First and foremost, global brand governance is the core benefit of Brand Activation Management software. Inconsistency is one of the biggest blockers to building brand strength.
Especially for executives in large, global-reaching companies, there is so much opportunity for local outlets to deviate from the overall brand vision without Brand Activation Management, often completely unintentionally. Whether it’s a language barrier issue, an instruction that’s been misinterpreted or new branding guidelines not reaching all your teams, this can result in misaligned marketing collateral. Even worse, is the repercussions:
Customers not knowing what your brand stands for, making it appear weak and not worth investing in
A disjointed customer journey, with different steps along the way not correlating to the ones that came before it
Your employees and partners not having a clear sense of brand objectives, reducing their engagement and capacity as brand advocates
Brand Activation Management, by keeping all the guidelines, strategic thinking and branded assets in one location, removes the risk of an inconsistent brand damaging your relationship with your audiences.
Brand relevance
When 80% of consumers are more likely to do business with a brand that provides a personalised, localised experience, being able to keep your branding and marketing collateral relevant and up-to-date is vital.
Brand Activation Management allows everyone in your organisation to work from a single source of brand assets, and produce high-quality marketing materials to jump on topical events, with no design expertise required.
Brand efficiency
Far too often there appears a need for each local outlet in your organisation to ‘reinvent the wheel’ with their own marketing campaigns, which is far from efficient. Some locations might be producing absolutely everything from scratch with little reference to what’s happening elsewhere in the organisation. This increases the risk of brand inconsistency and reduces your ability to churn out materials for your worldwide audience.
BAM prevents duplication of effort so that everyone has access to the same materials and templates. So if one team’s budget is significantly higher than another’s, BAM can still create a level playing field. Infinite asset creation is made available to everyone.
Brand Activation Management systems make it easier for your organisation’s teams to produce work efficiently. Every image, logo, product description, video, animation or price list can be centrally stored and simply retrieved, to be reutilised or adapted for future use.
This supports your capacity to engage and build a connection with your customers, as well as present better working conditions for your team with straightforward BAM tools.
With the need to preserve and propel your brand greater than ever to a worldwide audience spoilt for choices, Brand Activation Management works to maximise your presence and constantly reinforce your identity.
Brand automation
Keeping on top of every element of your brand can be all-consuming, particularly when a company spans the globe. Consistency is often attempted by multiple agencies and in-house teams in each country and realistically, it’s nearly impossible to stay aligned if you don’t have a shared tool and process for producing assets.
Brand automation has many benefits and is achieved by centralising where you store, create and share marketing materials. Using smart templates, such as those built by Papirfly, you can edit predefined templates with translations, culturally appropriate imagery, colours, branding and more.
BAM and the importance of brand consistency
When you’re at the helm of a global organisation with outlets based in numerous countries, brand consistency can be a challenge for several reasons:
Language barriers
Complying with cultural standards
The vast array of channels you market through
Bad interpretations of brand guidelines (by local teams or agencies)
Lack of clearly defined guidelines
Human error
Consistent branding results in 23% more annual revenue for organisations than those that are inconsistent, making brand consistency key in keeping audiences familiar, engaged and forming emotional ties to your brand.
A consistent brand is a strong brand supported by comprehensive guidelines – one that understands who they are, what they stand for and where they are going. That is the type of brand that customers identify with if they share similar values and the type of brand that fosters repeat business. Unless you have a consistent approach, messages can quickly become diluted, key information can get lost, and customers can get confused.
Brand consistency doesn’t just apply to your customers, but plays a key role in your employer branding as well. If there is a disconnection between your employees’ view and your external communication with potential new hires about what your brand is, you are sending out confusing messages and will likely fail to effectively engage both external and internal personnel, leading to dips in productivity and motivation.
How does Brand Activation Management help you achieve brand consistency?
Achieving this all-important brand consistency isn’t straightforward, but it is essential. The following three tips should go some way to realising the right balance:
1. Set parameters for your employees
Limit the potential for human error or brand inconsistency by setting clear boundaries as to who has access to what resources.
BAM by Papirfly™ gives you the power to adjust permission levels for employees, on an individual and team level. They only see the templates and files relevant to them and their projects. They get access to smart templates that provide creative flexibility within a set framework, meaning they can keep up with content creation demand but can’t move away from your brand guidelines.
2. Assess your existing channels in line with your brand identity
While most brands will want to spread their message to as wide an audience as possible, determining the best channels for your brand is crucial. If the tone of your brand is especially corporate and straight-laced, your marketing materials might not be fit for Instagram, in the same way that an energetic, kid-friendly company could steer clear of LinkedIn.
There are no clearly defined rules for this, but if your brand voice and the channels you work on clash too notably, team members could resort to twisting your message to try and fit the audience. With BAM, your templates can be resized based on specific channel requirements. If different teams require different social outputs, the template can be programmed to accommodate this.
3. Embrace the power of repetition
Brand templates and guidelines found within your Brand Activation Management software ensure that when adjustments are made to your assets, they do not steer away from your overarching brand and key messaging.
These brand management tools and templates help achieve consistency across your global marketing, optimise the production process and empower your entire organisation to be more reactive to the ever-evolving needs of your audiences worldwide.
What benefits does BAM software offer businesses?
Brand Activation Management software presents several valuable advantages for organisations looking to maximise their budgets, produce marketing materials at scale and make life easier for their employees.
Outside of what we’ve already discussed in this article, here are more ways that BAM can transform the way teams work forever:
Localising your content
For brand’s with a global reach, speaking to audiences overseas requires a full cultural understanding of their local nuances, imagery and language.
Did you know that 71% of marketers feel less than half of their content is being consumed effectively because it doesn’t take into account their local and mobile audiences? Now more than ever, it is imperative that global brands speak to audiences on a local, personal level in order to build strong relationships.
Let’s take one example of how BAM can support this localisation process…
You’re a global retailer with headquarters based in the U.S. and your team in Austria spotted an opportunity to promote a product based on weather conditions. The request would be sent across, then on to the agency to complete. This process could take several days or even weeks, and result in the opportunity being missed. Or the materials could reach the Austrian team with mistakes or creative elements that won’t fit the audience. If the Austrian team had access to BAM by Papirfly™ they could quickly and easily seize this opportunity by creating their own on-brand materials in-house, delivering what they need in a matter of minutes. And, if head office required, they could request digital approval in seconds for the asset they created from the U.S. team.
Enhanced efficiency across the board
As well as improving an organisation’s ability to turn around tailored content for their local audiences, Brand Activation Management goes even further in optimising the way companies market themselves across the globe.
Nintex reports that one of the most broken processes employees face is locating documents, with 49% of those surveyed stating this takes too much time in their organisation. When your company is spread across multiple locations, and your key brand assets aren’t stored in one central, easy-to-access space, it can lead to combined hours lost trying to find the assets required to create fresh marketing materials. And you can never get this time back.
BAM software, with its Digital Asset Management functionality, removes this waste of time and helps marketers and companies in general operate in a more streamlined, efficient manner. These systems help you organise, label and store assets in one fundamental location, where anyone can quickly filter through, locate and utilise for the asset they intend to create.
A Brand Activation Management system’s comprehensive templating tools can have your people, regardless of design expertise, producing on-brand and perfectly formatted marketing content from this location. With all brand assets in place, this reduces the chance for materials that go against your brand guidelines and subsequently slashing the time-consuming revision process.
The type of errors that require proofing and correction often come about because creatives do not have the information at hand to help them get it right the first time. Brand Activation Management reduces the chance of errors cropping up immediately, and helps save teams countless hours of time in the process.
Reduce reliance on agencies
Agencies are often critical to a brand’s strategy and creative communications. But if your team is totally reliant upon them for marketing materials, your budget is going to disappear quickly.
By bringing a large volume of everyday designs, edits and tweaks in-house, your team doesn’t have to wait around for what they need, and you can focus your agency budget on harnessing the skills of theirs you really need.
Supporting the 4-day working week
The 4-day working week is not yet a reality for most organisations, but it could well be the future. Many brands have their toes firmly dipped in the hybrid working pool, but for many, reducing hours by one whole working day is too big of a leap to take.
This is understandable, especially if teams are stretched already. But the 4-day work week for in-house teams could be possible with the help of BAM. Teams are creating more than they’ve ever thought possible, hitting deadlines way in advance and are freed up for more high-level thinking within their role.
While BAM can’t solve every challenge in relation to the 4-day work week, should brands need to head down this road in future in order to secure talent, BAM is a strong supportive step in the right direction.
Empowering your employees
Much of this article has concentrated on the benefits Brand Activation Management brings to your organisation’s ability to communicate your messages, visions and objectives to your customers. What shouldn’t go unappreciated is the advantages BAM software offers to your employees, enhancing how they work and appreciate your brand.
Getting as much of your team as possible involved in marketing content creation makes sense on every level:
More work is completed in-house
Marketing reaches audiences quicker
Employees feel encouraged to unlock creativity
Staff can work smarter, not harder
Deadlines are met, budgets maximised and stress levels are reduced
Your whole team develops a deeper connection with your brand
Brand Activation Management works to make life easier for your employees and place them at the forefront of your marketing efforts. With all brand assets accessible through a central portal, employees need just a short amount of time to create studio-quality materials that maintain complete compliance with your branding.
The true benefit offered by a BAM system here is its ease of use for people regardless of their design skills. Providing intuitive creative suites for the creation of digital, video, social, email, print and much more with clear branding parameters, employees are actively encouraged to embrace new ways to market to their audience.
Investing in a brand portal is a transformative move for your organisation, so it’s important you invest in the right one.
Optimising content creation
One of the trickiest parts of any marketing strategy is producing content at-scale and to meet short deadlines. Campaigns must be both planned and reactive, with the latter often posing challenges with a team’s ability to move things through to the approved stage quickly. It can involve any number of people, agencies and third-party suppliers to bring it all together, and can become a costly process.
Agencies provide valuable partnerships for strategic and creative work. But for everyday creations, amends and variations, budget can be quickly eaten up. Agencies are full of specialists who provide real insight, knowledge and skill for your marketing strategies. By taking some of the simpler creation tasks, edits and localisations in-house, budget is freed up to invest in more high-level agency input, as opposed to repetitive tasks that can be completed by your own teams.
BAM provides peace of mind that your teams can create exactly what they need – digital, social, video, print, email and more – in a matter of minutes. No need for design skills or engaging a professional, BAM templates are pre-programmed to meet strict brand guidelines, while giving teams the freedom to create.
Turnaround times become much less lengthy, with approvals and amends taking place internally. It also avoids having to use many local agencies across the world to work on translation and localisation materials, as these can all be handled via the BAM platform. This gives your one centralised agency total ownership over your creative and your business total control of its brand.
Do you really need BAM in your budget?
You might have missed the boat for this year’s budget, but it’s never too early to start laying the groundwork for next year. Help determine whether BAM is a must for your marketing budget.
BAM customer brand stories
Over 500,000 users are embracing BAM worldwide, and some of the world’s best-loved brands have never looked back since incorporating our software into their marketing team’s arsenal of tools. We’d like to share some first-hand brand stories on how BAM has changed their world for the better.
Brand Activation Management is redefining the way brands approach marketing
BAM by Papirfly™ supports global teams on their mission to achieve brand consistency.
Our team has spent decades developing our tools so your markets stay firmly educated on your brand’s purpose, guidelines and evolution, with no agency support or design expertise required.
Create infinite marketing assets in intuitive creation suites
Store and share brand assets from one location, accessible to teams worldwide
Educate your employees on the purpose, visions and missions of your brand
Manage, plan and organise campaigns with global governance tools
Back to basics: how to improve your talent retention
Papirfly
5minutes read
It may sound obvious to say that it pays to hold on to your best talent, but you may be surprised at just how big of an impact it makes. A recent study of more than 600,000 researchers, entertainers, politicians, and athletes found that high performers are 400% more productive than ‘average’ ones.
Over the last decade, there has been a widening skills gap across all sectors and a growing trend in changing jobs much more frequently. According to research by McKinsey, nearly a third of senior leaders cite finding talent as their most significant managerial challenge. Be sure to read our previous article, ‘Employer branding – how important is your employer brand?’ to gain some expert tips on navigating today’s unique recruitment landscape.
The gap in skills is largely due to a gap in experience. We are at a time when many baby boomers who have developed their skills at a company over a long period of time are beginning to retire — taking decades of knowledge and experience with them.
On top of this, millennials tend to be less loyal towards their workplace. In their report, ‘How Millennials Want to Work‘, Gallup found that one in five millennials have changed jobs in the last year and two in five are currently looking for a new job.
What does it take to attract and retain talent in 2022?
Remote-friendly interviews and onboarding
65% of candidates say that bad interview experiences will make them lose interest during an application process. Hindered by technical issues, a lack of face-to-face interaction and not being able to convey the atmosphere of the office can make it difficult for employers to make the best first impression.
“Trust has to exist from day one. When you’re remote you don’t have the opportunity to lean into someone’s cubicle to see how they’re doing. You have to get creative about ways to nurture that relationship.” Chloe Oddliefson, Head of People Operations at Dribbble (via Miro)
How a company supports employees working remotely will also have an effect on how long they decide to stay at a company. This all starts with a well-thought-out onboarding process that accounts for the challenges of not being in the office. If you want to retain great candidates from the get-go, using a digitised version of your onboarding document and omitting anything in-office related won’t cut it.
When new starters aren’t able to meet their team in person, onboarding is even more important for sharing elements that will help them learn all they need to know to become a successful addition to the company. Depending on the role, a comprehensive onboarding process may last around three months and cover these five areas:
Pre-onbording by HR, line manager and recruitment team
Onboarding by HR, line manager and payroll team
Orientation by line manager, colleagues and senior management
Feedback on first tasks and assignments by line manager
Ongoing support into their new role by line manager and colleagues
Promoting health and wellbeing
For obvious reasons, health and wellbeing has taken the spotlight over the last year. After companies saw first-hand the effects of employees suffering from poor physical and mental wellbeing during the pandemic, this will be an important value in employer branding going forward.
Many companies already offer health and wellness benefits like gym memberships, cycle to work schemes and free healthy snacks. However, these make no difference when your employees are working unreasonable hours or are not getting the right kind of support.
More than creating a more enjoyable place to work, addressing employee wellbeing issues at their root cause will help reduce burnout, increase productivity and retain employees for longer. Consider initiatives like:
Allowing flexible hours
Organising social activities
Regular employee check-ins
Empowering employee growth
Companies that leave their employees’ career growth stagnating have always been more likely to lose their most enthusiastic people more quickly.
In fact,70% of high-retention-risk employees say they’ll be forced to leave their organisation to advance their careers.
A focus on offering opportunities for personal and professional development will be a key factor in facing the current global retention crisis. These are especially important for retaining new talent at the beginning of their careers who are looking to learn fast and constantly improve. Some of these opportunities could include:
Internal learning and development programmes
Access to online courses
Room to grow within roles
Mentorship from senior employees
Opportunities and encouragement to put ideas forward
Internal comms is key
Internal communication is often one of the most overlooked areas of an employer brand proposition, yet it’s evident in the employee experience every single day. Part of making it a positive one is determined by building a connection and maintaining engagement.
Too often, internal comms is kept to the bare minimum and lacks the personality and culture traits that a company’s employer value proposition is centred around. Focusing more attention on what’s relevant and interesting to employees helps make them feel more engaged with the goals of the business. This not only instils more purpose in their role, but builds more loyalty too.
If you are keen to tackle work-related challenges that might encourage team members to look beyond your company, download our handy checklist outlining what you can do to address these issues and make a positive difference to your employees’ experience.
While email, surveys and text messaging are an essential part of the day-to-day running of a business, there is nothing stopping you from exploring other channels for more engaging communications. Video, social media posts, podcasts and blogs are a great way to share information, invite discussion and garner enthusiasm about what’s going on in the office and the wider business.
With a brand management solution you can streamline your internal asset creation with easy-to-use templates that help teams produce studio-quality materials in minutes. It also gives you a bird’s eye view of your campaigns and makes it quick and easy to share relevant and on-brand assets within your organisation.
Here are some great examples of companies that got it right:
The NHS To make sure that all their employees were getting their flu jab, the NHS used the power of video to create these engaging posts for their social media channels.
Waitrose UK supermarket, Waitrose, created a digital suggestion box to help all employees make their voices heard.
Pizza Hut At the beginning of the pandemic, Pizza Hut acted fast to create a two-way conversation between staff, franchises and restaurant managers. Using the simple medium of WhatsApp, they helped employees feel valued in their role in feeding Britain during a challenging time.
A more personalised approach shows a company’s ability to listen to the individual concerns of their employees. To retain the best talent, companies need to ditch the ‘one solution fits all employees’ approach.
Develop retention strategies that…
Understand the different visions and goals of their staff – both professional and personal
Allows employees to make their voices heard
Provides opportunities to take on new challenges and steer their own path
“Personalisation for millennials in the workplace is about them seeing their work and organisation as a projection of themselves, and that drives loyalty.” Felicity Furey, Founder of the Professional Leaders Institute (via The CEO Magazine)
Be more flexible
When workplaces were plunged into lockdown, some were more prepared than others to support their employees to do their jobs effectively from home.
The most successful strategies included…
Adopting the hybrid working model
Testing out the four-day week
Investing in technology that makes remote collaboration possible
Go further than raises and bonuses
Higher salaries and monetary rewards are one of the first considerations for an employee thinking of leaving an organisation. But they aren’t the only deciding factor. While having a competitive salary is undoubtedly a good thing, it does nothing to make a company stand out from the competition.
Establish a remote interview processes
Even if you have no immediate plans to bring in new talent, having a remote hiring strategy in place is vital for future-proofing your turnover, which is likely to increase going forward in 2021.
What should the remote interview process achieve?
Can assess a candidate’s ability to work independently
Reviews their proficiency communicating via digital channels
Consumers have fallen upon hard times in recent months, with price rises across fuel, electricity, electronics, food and clothing making ordinary living more expensive than ever before.
As retailers, price rises are a necessity, as suppliers and manufacturers force you to pass on some of your additional costs to your customers. However, having to spend more to receive less is going to make purchasers much more selective about who they give their money to. That’s where your brand and marketing can help set you apart.
While marketing campaigns are an effective way of driving custom in difficult times, the reality is that retailers must explore other areas of the business to cut costs and ensure shoppers aren’t always the ones feeling the biggest squeeze during these financially uncertain times.
Retaining existing customers is going to be the greatest challenge and the biggest priority. There are only two sure-fire ways to do this:
Keep costs low by increasing technology and automation
This article will help you discover different technologies that can be adopted across the business, help you optimise your operations and cut costs within your retail product space.
A powerful CRM: build relationships and maximise sales opportunities
A CRM or Customer Relationship Management system underpins almost every element of customer communication. There may be features you are paying for which are not needed, or there could be features that – if in place – could save you a lot of time and only cost a nominal amount to add on.
A semi-regular review of your CRM system’s features, needs and processes is integral to keeping on top of costs and tasks.
Additionally, providing better training on how to analyse consumer insights within the CRM could lead to better decision-making and higher average transaction values (ATVs). These insights could be taken from audiences you’ve accrued from different campaigns, loyalty programme data, customer service conversations or when measuring engagement from your omni-channel marketing.
Solid project management: Meet deadlines and go to market quickly
This may sound like a no-brainer, but you would be surprised at how many large retailers are yet to make the switch to more modern methods of project management. Software such as Monday can help those in head office and area managers effectively push projects through at pace.
This can remove several layers of ambiguity and minimise the risk of miscommunication to ensure deadlines are met every time.
Marketing automation, AI and analytics: Using insight and data to drive business decisions
Automating processes within consumer purchasing, returns, inventory management and more will help save valuable time and improve the accuracy of reporting within your retail brand’s environment.
Likewise, triggering automated marketing communications for particular actions can help improve the customer experience and increase what they spend on your products. For example, if they have forgotten that their online shopping basket is full, a quick email can give them a nudge to complete the transaction.
Some retailers even go as far as using AI technology to analyse their retail store spaces and interact with their built environment to provide optimal temperature, air quality and lighting for shopping, while also ensuring that technology is powered down during off-peak hours or when the shop is closed.
Agencies are a necessity for large-scale creative campaigns and strategic work. But sometimes you just need to get things out quickly. Brand Activation Management is an all-in-one creation, education, management and storage portal.
It gives teams, regardless of skill level, the ability to create on-brand video, digital, social, print assets and more. The easy-to-use interface allows individuals to create what they need from intelligent templates and only edit within the parameters that have been pre-defined.
This means you can go to market quicker and use your agency budget more effectively for strategic and topline creative work. Everything off the back of the campaigns, such as resizes, localisations and other edits can be easily executed by your in-house team.
The creation tool is also integrated with your PIM and ERP system, so all data and imagery that’s pulled into collateral is up-to-date and 100% accurate.
Ready to make Brand Activation a reality for your retail brand?
Technology is queen when it comes to cutting costs and optimising every hour you have in the working day. BAM by Papirfly™ provides a game-changing way of working for retailers and their marketing teams. A tool that can be used by everyone from head office through to store-level managers.
Tools to cope with a reduced workforce in peak vacation season
Papirfly
4minutes read
Vacation time should be a period of relaxation and tranquillity. However, all too often annual leave scrambles timelines, causes unplanned delays and results in teams stressing to meet deadlines.
Although employees working abroad can pick up the slack when colleagues are away, global collaboration can also add to the problem. This is because certain countries have unique ‘vacation cultures’ that can make working across borders difficult.
While workers in the U.S. are often allocated 10 days of paid holiday annually, most employees in Norway take 2 to 3 weeks off in July for a communal summer break.
For fast-moving marketing teams facing down important deadlines, having periods throughout the year where large swathes of people are off can feel like an impossible hurdle to overcome.
Although restricting when employees can take time off or slashing annual leave allowance can seem like the only way to stay on track, doing so could lower worker morale, diminish productivity and scare off potential talent.
To stay afloat with a reduced workforce during peak vacation season, we’ve identified a handful of must-have tools for any marketing team.
Programmes that streamline marketing processes
Whether it’s in the office or between your global divisions, different peaks in holiday mean there may be times when your team is missing large swathes of people.
Not only does this reduce your department’s capabilities, but it could also mean key expertise are temporarily missing from the company. Gaps in the workforce can send productivity plummeting, and often require those still working to pitch in longer hours to meet deadlines.
Expedite content creation with BAM by Papirfly™
For fast-paced marketing teams already facing shrinking budgets, delivering the variety of content at the volume required is already a mammoth undertaking. With the added disruption that peak vacation periods can bring, this challenge only gets harder.
Create on-style assets at pace with zero design experience using BAM’s smart templates and introduce a new era of consistency to your employer brand.
Get crucial details correct every time with in-built PIM and ERP integration tools; perfect for retailers creating custom offers or their own catalogue
Localise collateral in just a few clicks to ensure your message resonates with stakeholders all over the world.
Simplify project management with monday.com
To meet quotas and deadlines, planning is crucial – without a clear roadmap, teams can get lost, jobs can get missed and valuable time is lost. However, project management can be a lengthy exercise in and of itself.
To prevent this crucial task from further disrupting operations when teams are light on the ground, monday.com is a comprehensive project management tool that can streamline this process from start to finish.
Easily plan, track and monitor the progress of projects in a single digital place.
Identify and tackle roadblocks in advance before they cause issues.
Oversee projects at a glance to make crucial decisions with confidence.
Maintain your employer brand with ease using Personio
When the clock is ticking, and your marketing team is understaffed, it can be tempting to let candidate tracking take a backseat. However, an employer brand seen to be inactive can have a huge negative impact on how it’s perceived.
To keep job seekers all over the world engaged throughout the peak vacation season, Personio is a digital applicant tracking platform that focuses on simplifying and accelerating the recruitment process.
Automatically collate applicant details into a single, digital profile and tag strengths and weaknesses to identify top talent with ease.
Save time by using templates for invitations and rejections, and keep job seekers up to date at every step.
Access a detailed analytics dashboard to monitor stats, such as time-to-hire and cost-per-hire.
Platforms to centralise files
As well as reducing the time it takes to carry out certain tasks, such as content creation and applicant tracking, another way to cope with a smaller workforce during peak vacation season is to centralise files.
The last thing you want is to rely solely upon a certain colleague or office for files. Not only does this take time out of the sender’s day, but you may also be unable to access what you need when they are away from their desk.
Store files in one place with BAM
By using a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system, and storing everything teams need in a central place, there’s never a scenario where work has to come to a halt because crucial files are inaccessible.
Alongside BAM’s powerful suite of content creation tools, the in-built DAM is packed full of handy time-saving features for any marketing team.
Easily find the content you’re looking for with advanced filters and assemble retail promotions with speed and confidence.
Assign permissions to individual users to give your fiercest advocates the content they need to evangelise your employer brand.
Send and save files easily to ensure your international offices have the content they need to present a unified image.
Don’t let the peak vacation period send deadlines spiralling
For marketing teams that may already be contending with tighter budgets, holiday time can seem like an insurmountable hurdle to overcome.
However, with the right tools, you can take charge, regain control and deliver the output you need on time, in budget and without the need to work long hours or limit holiday allowances.
To learn more about BAM and how it can help streamline content creation, centralise assets and keep up during peak vacation season, learn more online or book a demo today.
Digital design templates: content creation tools for brand consistency
Papirfly
3minutes read
In an increasingly competitive market, brand consistency isn’t a nice‑to‑have. It’s how you build recognition, loyalty, and long‑term value. And that’s where digital design templates come in. With digital design templates, you can ensure your brand shows up the same way every time, strengthening your brand identity and helping you stand out.
How can every team create on‑brand content without needing design support?
When content needs to go live fast, brand identity is often the first thing to suffer. With teams working under pressure and without the right tools, off-brand assets can creep into your channels. Templated digital content creation changes that.
Editable templates empower anyone in your business to create assets without compromising your brand – and without needing to chase down files or request support. Workflows get smoother. Bottlenecks disappear. And your brand stays protected.
How do you stay agile without compromising brand consistency?
Marketing teams must move fast – but not at the expense of consistency. While you don’t want to be the last brand to react to an important new social media trend, you also cannot risk rushing out a message that doesn’t fit your brand personality or target audience.
With pre-designed templates, anyone in your company can create consistent and on‑brand assets in moments. Logos, fonts, color palettes, tone – every element is pre‑set and locked into the content creation process. So even when timelines are tight, your messaging stays sharp and on‑brand.
Reduce costs. Increase efficiency.
Templated content creation tools don’t just make brand execution easier – they make it more cost‑efficient. By shifting digital content creation in‑house, you can minimize revision cycles and free up agencies and design teams to focus on more high‑impact creative work.
The result?
Faster turnaround times
Fewer approval delays
Lower production costs
More content created without more headcount
What types of templates should your brand be using?
Best-in-class digital template solutions should cover every channel and format your brand needs. That way, they can become the essential building blocks of your campaigns. Key formats include:
Ads Ensure brand recall across paid and owned channels with ad templates built for cross-platform consistency.
Social media React to events and social media trends instantly with templates that help local teams post quickly, without compromising the brand.
Print From posters and brochures to event roll‑ups, your physical assets should reflect your digital brand with precision.
Video Video is no longer optional. Templates make it scalable – empowering non‑designers to produce compelling, brand‑aligned videos with ease.
Dynamic content Create, edit, and personalize assets across markets. Templates with dynamic fields give teams the flexibility to adapt, fast.
Why is templated content creation key to future‑proofing your brand?
Your brand doesn’t stand still. It evolves, adapts, and expands. So your tech needs to keep pace.
Templated content creation tools – built into a centralized solution like Papirfly – give you the control to safeguard your brand and the flexibility to empower every team to contribute. It’s how modern content creation services stay responsive, consistent, and cost‑effective.
What marketers can learn from TikTok’s formula for success
Papirfly
4minutes read
TikTok has taken the social media scene by storm garnering 689 million users by 2021. Immediately after launching, it landed especially well with younger generations with quick-fire viral dance routines, lip-sync videos and challenges.
But if you think TikTok is just for teenagers, think again. Artists, celebrities, publishers, influencers and global brands are now capitalising on its potential.
The social platform might seem like it has a secret formula for creating overnight success, but in the words of TikTok themselves, the app is driven by a simple mantra to ‘Inspire Creativity and Bring Joy’. In this article, we unpack what that means and explain how it can be translated into five real-world marketing lessons.
#1 Content quality over production quality
The TikTok formula
TikTok creators embrace whatever filming conditions they are presented with on the day and generally don’t spend time and budget on professional sets and lighting. That’s because they know their audiences are more interested in seeing the content itself and are less concerned with its production value.
Actionable takeout for marketers
While a global brand might not want to put their name to anything that looks unprofessional, the lesson here is that it’s not the most important thing audiences care about. The kind of authenticity that comes with low budget production can even add a certain charm to your content.
Focus on the single idea that your brand needs to get across and bring it to life from there. Think of your idea as the foundation for your content, rather than prioritising what it looks like. This goes for videos with budgets big and small.
The perfect platform for short attention spans, TikTok keeps viewers coming back for more with bite-sized chunks of highly engaging content. With videos between 15 seconds and a minute in length, creating successful content for TikTok is an exercise in keeping things concise and getting to the point. This leaves no room to deviate from a subject or go off on long rambling stories. Done well, it’s quick, punchy and much more powerful.
The average consumer attention span is approximately 8 seconds (Microsoft)
Actionable takeout for marketers
The trick is to keep it simple. By making sure that your content follows a single, clear narrative from start to finish, your audience is more likely to remember the message you are trying to get across. This is easier said than done when the content you are creating isn’t confined to the time limits of TikTok, but it applies to almost any kind of marketing material that you are producing.
Avoid the temptation to cram in extra messaging just because you can. Time-poor audiences expect short-form content, and you have a much better chance of getting through to them with one clear message in comparison to many different points. Think of the old analogy of catching tennis balls. One or two at a time is easy enough but when you get a barrage of them you’re likely to drop them all.
The most successful TikTok creators tend to stick to a specific niche and get creative within them. In fact, it’s arguably the most niche-driven content creation platform out there. When people tune into a particular creator, they are doing so to see content that’s focused on something very specific.
Actionable takeout for marketers
As you gain a following based on the type of content you’re creating, your audience will come to expect a certain amount of consistency. Being generic might seem like an effective way of reaching the most people but, in reality, it can make your content seem out of place or remove what initially attracted your hard-earned following.
Carving out a niche is a great way to ensure that your content is providing something useful. It should set the direction of everything you create and be driven by an in-depth understanding of the audiences you are trying to reach.
TikTok’s ‘For You’ page is where many creators look to find ideas for their next post. However, the platform also lends itself well to trying out something different and has seen many irreverent, off-the-cuff videos become the next big trend.
Actionable takeout for marketers
Jumping on a trend can be hugely beneficial and has the potential to be the starting point of a string of successful content. However, your marketing strategy doesn’t have to become attached to what’s already been tried and tested.
Get inspired to create something original. Starting from scratch can sometimes be daunting, or just too time-consuming, so if you’re stuck for ideas, try looking at existing trends or content you’ve already created and adding to it in a new way.
Part of the reason that TikTok has more than 2billiion total downloads is its capability to capture and show off the authenticity of users. No matter how many thousands of followers the platform’s top creators have earned, they still understand the value in throw-away content, often shot at home. In comparison to other social media platforms, there is a trend to focus on fun, relatable content in favour of showing off unattainable lifestyles at glamorous locations.
Actionable takeout for marketers
Your content may have the core purpose of driving sales, but that doesn’t mean there is no room to show your brand’s true personality in what you create. Authenticity drives credibility by instilling trust in audiences and resonating with them on a more personal level.
To make a brand appear authentic, marketers need to create content that’s consistent with its identity and key values. Content that’s inconsistent can leave brand messaging open to different interpretations, lack clarity and lose the trust of its audience.
In summary
Focus on the quality of your ideas, not just production value
Know when to keep it snappy and get to the point
Create content that serves a purpose for your audience
Of course, there is no definite formula for success. As TikTok proves in its billions of interactions, what’s in trend can change by the minute. So, if you’re going to have any chance of getting ahead, you need a marketing platform that allows you to create a steady stream of consistent content and react fast to changes in the market.
With a suite of asset creation features, BAM by Papirfly™ can help your teams do just that, and in a matter of minutes. Plus, you can ensure that everything they produce is on-brand by using bespoke templates.
International MarTech Day: a celebration and a call to action
Karl-Fredrik Lund
6minutes read
As key players in the thriving industry of marketing technology, we all have a great deal to celebrate in 2022. The first annual International MarTech Day marks how everyday marketing operations for global brands have been transformed by talented and innovative SaaS teams worldwide.
Worth 122 billion dollars, the MarTech landscape is growing at a rate of 22% each year. With 8,000 different solutions identified in the 2020 State of MarTech report by Scott Brinker – the ‘Godfather of MarTech’ and natural co-founder of this new annual celebration – companies find themselves spoiled for choice.
Brands have never had so many options to help create a satisfying stack of MarTech solutions. As product providers challenge one another to raise the bar in their offerings, a seemingly endless number of solutions can pose a problem. In the short-term, the people in charge of the marketing budget decisions must find the combo of the right solutions that bring true long-term value.
Helping brands land immediate strategies is an essential role all MarTech should play. The next step is to provide solutions that empower brands to advance future ambitions. This next phase is a call to action for visionary leaders to emerge in the industry, creating a clearer picture of the must-have solutions to be included in any MarTech stack.
MarTech must offer a bird’s-eye view in 2022
Every brand is in an increasingly crowded marketplace. Solutions must serve brands in a way that supports activating brand identity and maintains a consistent, positive customer experience. Marketing teams must remove workflow barriers to attract new prospects, whilst nurturing the cycle of trust of existing loyal relationships.
As a brand gets bigger, the production bottlenecks, duplications of work and costly miscommunications can increase. This blocks a clear and unique brand encounter from being fully experienced with target audiences – customers, employees, stakeholders or the wider public. There is also a clear time, energy and cost drain here. The best people need to stay onboard to help a company stay on-brand. Giving individuals the right tools to thrive in their roles has never been more important.
Today provides an opportunity for all brand leaders and MarTech teams to ask if the technologies on the table truly support the longevity of a brand. So-called ‘solutions’ must genuinely contribute to:
A positive ecosystem for talent
Every tool must positively support brand strategy and organisational goals. Less systems that do more could be the answer, as a brand’s MarTech should be working to serve its people – not the other way around.
Improving workflows to support better communication, data-gathering and targeted messaging creates more space for individuals to thrive in their roles. As a result, the employer brand is elevated when a company creates these conditions for its people. Teams are more likely to attract and retain employees devoted to such a brand.
Complete consistency and brand governance
Achieving a bird’s-eye view over the entire brand identity must be a constant goal for every brand. How teams are using implemented systems must be monitored to confirm the value they give. Uncomplicated approval processes across every location should always support strategy.
For example, consider a Brand Activation Management (BAM) plan of action – the cross-channel approach to create the awareness, engagement and overall experience for potential and existing customers. Access to clear brand guidelines is essential. Pre-defined material for on-brand asset creation with swift sign-off procedures helps deliver the brand experience fast and with flexibility and transparency. Every person must be empowered to champion the brand. Every piece of MarTech must support its people in doing so at every level, with no compromises.
An investment in relationships that deliver ROI
Off-the-shelf solutions can make immediate impacts. Yet considering the ambitions of both brands – the customer and the MarTech solution – being a collaborative extension to each other’s team is better. The customers meet their goals by the solution provider taking action on identified needs. Something only a close relationship can provide for the best results.
Simply put, ‘shiny new object syndrome’ must be overcome to improve ROI. Prioritising positive relationships with expert collaborators creates a sense of longevity. After all, the success of both brands are interdependent – a mutual relationship where both teams win (or lose) together.
As we think about these key points, it’s clear the ‘must-haves’ in future MarTech stacks will be those solutions that demonstrate such leadership. Supporting the creation of deep, long-term foundations. Confidently building brands’ ability to reach greater heights.
Leading the way within MarTech
In order to stand out in MarTech, standing still is not an option. If you keep doing the same thing for too long – no matter how well you do it – someone will overtake you. Being inspired by competitors, not being afraid to make mistakes and constantly innovating products from lessons learned are essential survival skills. This likely means we will see more partnering of MarTech brands whose visions align.
Papirfly Group has been empowering brands for over 20 years, preceding Scott Brinker’s first report by over a decade. Having recently brought the powerful MarTech brands of Papirfly and Brandmaster together – and other dynamic, aligned solutions – we also began this year with new growth-investment partners. Awarded the title of Best Growth Manager at the PE Wire European Awards 2022, Verdane brings expertise, support and a common belief in our potential.
This is excellent news for IBM, Unilever, Coca-Cola and the 200+ brands we are proud to serve. Our Product Marketing Manager, Frank Tommy Brotke, offers some insights which help outline why the one-stop-shop solution of BAM is becoming an essential inclusion within the MarTech stacks of forward-thinking brands:
BAM is a must-have solution for any brand’s MarTech stack
Tools that contribute to a positive ecosystem give everyday value and unleash team potential. The emergence of Brand Activation Management as a category has seen Papirfly Group’s own talent excel. Our product experts and customer success teams regularly innovate and evolve our service offerings – supporting customers to build their unique brands in a better way than ever before.
A brand portal as a hub for all identity guidelines. A platform for pre-approved templates for asset creation. A home for approval processes that contribute to a governing aerial perspective. As proud leaders in this category, our all-in-one BAM software leads the competition in providing these essential solutions.
A digital asset management system where locked-down brand media are stored and shared is taken one step further. Working closely with our customers we create predefined templates. Every employee can deliver the assets they need in a short space of time. Now, on-brand assets such as images, videos, emails, POS and print material can be created within minutes. All inside one cloud-based solution so reviews, revisions and sign-offs can be actioned swiftly.
Costs and time-drains of dealing with agencies are eliminated, as are bottlenecks. In fact, no specialist design experience is needed. No single-point asset creator is required. The fully internal approval process adds the flexibility to respond to events, whether within a brand’s industry or the wider world.
Our global reach has taught us the demands of different regions. The intuitive interface of our templates sets us apart, as it gives flexibility to serve every location. Culturally relevant imagery and language translation is no longer a problem. Creating hyper-local messaging for retail, employer brand or corporate communication purposes is simple. Our BAM solution truly serves the long-term future of brands globally. And, like many MarTech brands, we have the innovation of the industry to thank for pushing us to reach our potential.
A year is a long time in MarTech…
It’s difficult to predict exactly what the landscape will look like on the next International MarTech Day. We fully intend to remain leaders in Brand Activation Management, whilst we’ll respectfully be looking over our shoulder at our competitors.
Like all MarTech businesses, we welcome the challenge to constantly raise the bar. We should all be a voice in a rallying call for MarTech companies to take the lead and unleash their creativity and potential. In doing so we can inspire one another to deliver the changes that will ensure all brands can create strong foundations for many years to come.
This attitude will mean that those of us that continue to thrive will deservedly keep raising a glass to one another at this time, every year.
With askålfrom our home in Scandinavia – Happy International MarTech Day everyone!
