Tradition meets modernity - How WEMPE optimizes its employer brand with Candidate Personas

Initial situation: Employer brand with traditional values

Wempe is one of the most traditional and respected family businesses in Germany - with watch and jewelry collections that are in demand worldwide, excellent advice and genuine craftsmanship. As an employer, Wempe also impresses with strong values, an active corporate culture and high quality standards. In the course of the further development of the corporate brand, Wempe asked itself a central strategic question: How can the employer brand be systematically linked to the brand strategy - and thus further developed as an integrated part of the overall image?

Challenge: Optimizing the employer brand for the future

The project focused on the strategic realignment of the employer brand - with the aim of being authentic, modern and compatible with the corporate brand. The aim was to make the company' s strengths as an employer more visible and to design future-oriented employer communication in order to attract new talent to the company.

Solution: Candidate personas as a data-based basis for decision-making

The basis for this: a valid and data-based decision-making basis for greater visibility among relevant target groups. This is where data-based candidate personas come into play. Wempe decided to collaborate with the Persona Institute in order to consistently think about the employer brand as part of the overarching corporate strategy.

Implementation steps:

1. Data analysis:

Building on existing company insights, the Persona Institute conducted further comprehensive market research analyses and combined socio-demographic characteristics, interests and psychographic data on values, attitudes and requirements for the working environment to create scientifically sound and meaningful candidate personas. The Persona Institute took into account both existing employees and potential new candidates who fit the company's requirements.

2. Development of candidate personas:

Based on this data, the Persona Institute developed two candidate personas that represent at least 80 percent of the most important target groups of applicants at Wempe. The personas contain scientifically sound information on motivation, values, information behavior, expectations of recruiting processes and employers in general as well as basic decision criteria. These personas therefore form the basis for employer communication that starts exactly where it really reaches suitable specialists.

3. Conception of data-based recommendations for action

In order to consistently think about content, messages and touchpoints from the perspective of the target group - and to further develop them in line with Wempe's tonality and brand values - the Persona Institute derived recommendations for action from the data collected. Summarized in a persona playbook, these serve as a data-based decision-making basis for linking the employer brand to the further developed brand strategy by means of various measures.

Result: Candidate personas as a source of inspiration for the employer brand
Employer Brand

The data-based personas help Wempe not only to better understand target groups, but also to align all measures along the candidate journey - from the language to the storyline. On this basis, Wempe is developing an employer brand that fits seamlessly into the company's overall image: authentic, respectful and brand-compliant. The candidate personas provided the impetus for this. The desire for a sense of purpose, personal development and a working environment in which appreciation is tangible are strengths that Wempe already lives by today and is now making even more visible through new employer branding. The clear connection to the corporate brand gives the new employer communication an additional profile, consistency and charisma.

Wempe shows how modern employer branding can work in conjunction with traditional corporate brands: based on real data, with a deep understanding of the target groups - and consistently anchored in the brand strategy. The new candidate personas are more than just an HR tool: They are a compass for brand-appropriate, authentic and convincing convincing employer communication.