Employer Branding Online | Interview with Founder of Evviva Brands

Facebook like box provided by myApi, the Facebook bridge for Joomla

myEBO Login

Home

Articles

Interviews

Interview with Founder of Evviva Brands

Written by EBO Editor

Wednesday, 23 September 2009 05:44

Article Index
Interview with Founder of Evviva Brands
Page 2
All Pages

Page 1 of 2

Dr. David Kippen is a brand strategist with a wealth of global experience in employer branding. He’s consulted on employer branding with a range of global companies including category leaders like Burger King, Chevron, Coca-Cola, Dell, Disney, E.ON AG, HP, HSBC, General Mills, Intel, Microsoft, Teva and T-Mobile. When we learned he had launched Evviva Brands, an employer brand consultancy EBO were intrigued so we sat down with David to learn more about his new venture.

EBO: Congratulations on launching Evviva Brands. I’ve had a chance to look at your website www.evvivabrands.com and it looks like you’ve got an interesting business model and an impressive team.

DK: Thank you.

EBO: It seems to me that what’s different about what you do is what you’re not. You say on your site “We're not an ad agency. We partner with your vendor agencies as the lead brand agency. We partner with you as your dedicated employer brand and engagement advisors.” How does that work in practice?

DK: Think of a brand shop like Landor. They build brands. That’s all they do. And they do it exceptionally well as a result. Our goal is to be the Landor of employment branding. That means we’ll work with both the client and the agency. For the client, we serve as trusted, expert advisors who understand how agencies work and how the client’s internal brand function works. For our partner agencies, we serve as experts on the client organization who can take what we know about the client and turn it into what the agency needs—great creative briefing, coaching on key issues, and deep global insight.

EBO: Before founding Evviva you headed up global brand strategy for TMP Worldwide. How is this different from what you did there?

DK: How much time do we have (laughing)? Look, I had a great run at TMP. I had a chance to work with many of the world’s best brands. I’m very proud of the work I delivered under the TMP banner. And TMP’s very good at their core business of recruitment advertising.

But today, clients are much more sophisticated about employer branding than they were even a few years ago. They want to work with best-in-class, specialized talent. That’s why we’re not an ad agency. Our aim is simple: focus on one thing and be the best in the world at it.

EBO: But wouldn’t your ‘brand shop’ model require you to work with these agencies?

DK: Absolutely. And there’s no conflict there whatsoever. As I said, TMP’s very good at their core business. That’s true of all the agencies. What we add to the mix is a specialized focus. We work with our clients to define and articulate their brands. Then we work with the agency to brief them on the brand and we review the creative before the client ever sees it to ensure that it’s on-brand and on-brief.

EBO: And the agencies accept this?

Prev - Next >>