Employer branding campaign

An employer branding campaign and strategy that appeals to a global workforce, transforming promising employees into the next generation of company leaders.

Background

The HR team at the Global Medicines Development (GMD) function of AstraZeneca asked us to develop an employer branding solution that would support its Passion for People Development programme – a scheme designed to provide specialised training for leaders within GMD. The programme would target employees across 47 countries worldwide, helping individuals build skills that would strengthen their teams and demonstrate the company’s commitment to retaining and developing top talent.

Challenge

The internal brand needed to establish the programme as a unique and attractive opportunity for career development among a global and diverse audience. Initially, a pilot of the programme would be launched for the GMD function in a single location, with plans to follow with a roll-out worldwide. The employer branding solution had to be eye-catching, overcome potential language barriers and communicate the impact that the programme would have on an individual’s career development in a memorable way.

Solution

Employer branding can have a significant impact on how employees perceive opportunities for growth within a company, so, working closely with our client’s internal communications agency, AG Comms, we focused on creating a solution that would emphasise AstraZeneca’s investment in the programme, as well as how staff would benefit from it in the long term.

Our key visual features the outline of a person surrounded by brightly coloured outlines that increase in size with each new layer. This design helps emphasise individual growth and achievement over time in a universally recognisable way. Each curved outline represents an extra layer of skills, and by positioning the programme title vertically instead of horizontally, we were able to visually convey the idea of charting progress over time.

Highlights

The brand was rolled out across a variety of printed and digital materials, including animations, videos, and promotional communication tools. We also delivered a cost-effective app by modifying and rebranding an existing technology solution, allowing leaders to engage with their colleagues, learn from one another and acquire new skills together.

Using L shapes, the boxed typeface and other elements, we created an identifier for the Leaders Lab, a physical and virtual space for learning and collaboration that further supported the Passion for People Development programme. 

The campaign branding was ultimately used for the GMD Awards, an annual event celebrating outstanding employee achievements within the division. 

Elements of the umbrella brand were also used to create an identifier for GMD Education and Learning, a programme module that focused on achieving specific educational milestones. Use of the steps visuals helped to convey individual aspiration and progressions of the participants over time.

Result

The employer branding campaign has been so successful that it is being rolled out to other areas of the business, including the design and build of an app where GMD employees can view career opportunities in a game-based environment.