Employer Branding is the New Business Strategy

In today’s fast evolving landscape, employer branding (EB) is no longer just a recruitment function it’s a strategic business lever.

In our recent webinar, ‘Rewriting the Employer Playbook: Stay Competitive or Fall Behind’, we sat down with Timothy Schepis, Global Director of Employer Brand at Coupang, to explore how top brands are redefining employer branding. Whether you joined us live or are just catching up, here are the top takeaways from the conversation.

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1. The Evolving Role of Employer Branding

Employer branding is expanding far beyond hiring.

Beyond Recruitment: As Timothy shared, EB now plays a key role in business reputation, customer trust, investor confidence, and strategic partnerships. A strong employer brand signals ethical values and employee wellbeing factors that resonate with both talent and consumers.
Shifting Team Structures: EB is increasingly moving out of HR and into marketing, communications, and brand experience (BX) teams reflecting its rising strategic value.
Multidisciplinary Expertise: Timothy advises EB professionals to “dive deep” into marketing disciplines from media and analytics to copywriting, design, and video to deliver campaigns with consumer-level impact.

2. One Brand, One Message

Your employer brand and consumer brand should tell the same story.

Consistent Messaging: Timothy put it perfectly: “Your employer brand is what people say about working at your company when you're not in the room.” He added, “Your employer and consumer brand should be one consistent message, because people view them as one.”
Internal Trust Drives External Success: By being transparent and data-driven, Coupang’s EB team earned stakeholder trust, eventually leading to creating broader campaigns, like a brand awareness initiative in India.
Repurpose for Reach: Timothy emphasised that all EB content should be multi-use and repurposed across marketing, comms, and internal channels to maximise ROI and impact.

3. The Power of Authentic Employee Content

Real stories build real trust.

Authenticity Wins: Coupang’s most successful content? Employee-generated videos created with their Taiwan team via Seenit achieving a 65% view-through rate for videos under 2 minutes.
Less Polish, More Punch: Authentic EGC (employee-generated content) outperformed high-production videos, especially internally with 1.5% higher CTRs.
Make It Easy to Participate: Build confidence by showing real examples, offering opt-outs, or using narrated B-roll. This approach led Coupang employees to proactively ask to be featured in content.
Brand Consistency Still Matters: While content should be authentic, it must still align with brand identity. Coupang maintains this balance through internal content guidelines and smart tools.

4. Scaling Employer Branding with Tools & AI

Tech helps lean EB teams do more with less.

AI as a Co-Pilot: Timothy emphasised that AI supports EB teams, it doesn’t replace them. Authenticity still requires a human touch.
Content Repurposing: Tools like Seenit’s AI capabilities allow teams to turn one video into multiple assets: blog posts, social snippets, etc. Making scaling easier and faster.
Global Reach Through Tech: AI also plays a background role in audience segmentation, programmatic media campaigns, and automated translations on career sites helping EB messages reach and include global audiences.