Categorizing Humorous Employer Brand Message in a Small Company’s Online Job Ads

Eeva-Liisa Oikarinen () and Saila Saraniemi
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Eeva-Liisa Oikarinen: University of Oulu
Saila Saraniemi: University of Oulu

Corporate Reputation Review, 2016, vol. 19, issue 3, No 2, 198-218

Abstract: Abstract This study creates a framework for defining the employer brand message to understand an understudied phenomenon: how small companies use humour in online job ads. The originality of the framework is based on three issues. First: categorizing employer brand content into symbolic attributes: staff, applicant and other stakeholder, and instrumental attributes: company and job. Second: categorizing humour, informal and formal as communication styles. Third: investigating the thematic relatedness of communication style to employer brand content attributes to understand using humour in employer brand message. Illustrative empirical findings indicated that a small company focused more on symbolic attributes rather than instrumental attributes in its employer brand content. Humour was used typically when it was thematically related to symbolic attributes: applicant or staff. Humour was used less when it was thematically related to instrumental attributes: company and job. A framework offers new insights for researchers in the conceptualizing of the employer brand message. For marketing practitioners, it offers a method for evaluating and planning a company’s employer brand message.

Keywords: employer brand message; employer brand; job ads; humour; communication style; online media (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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DOI: 10.1057/s41299-016-0003-2

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