If you’ve got a toe in the consumer advertising bubble on LinkedIn, you’ll see a word popping up a lot right now. Entertainment. The gist goes like this... 

In this era of content in your pocket and a billion people pumping out reels… Brands need to entertain, or they die.

In other words, unless you fancy spending a fortune on paid media with work that completely bypasses your audience's memory, you want to do something entertaining that people like to watch and gets organic reach.

Entertainment is returning as a ‘trend’ that resonates to the very top of ad land, from Liquid Death’s rapid assault on the bottled water market to the excellent work done by the agency Small World. Arguably it’s nothing new - The Hathaway Man’s eyepatch from the 1950’s is an example that springs to mind, as is everything Red Bull has ever done on the international stage.

And there’s some solid behavioural psychology behind it too. Your brain is hardwired to remember things that are novel and interesting, quirky or just plain odd. That’s the evolutionary trait strategists try to tap into when we talk about making memories… and the other secret weapon of entertainment is emotion.

It feels like a cliche, but it’s worth remembering. Your strongest memories are connected with strong emotions. Entertainment makes you feel something, and that feeling becomes a big chunk of the memory itself.

Science aside, what can we humble employer branders learn from such a simple, antagonising command as ‘entertain or die’?

If you have an employer brand that entertains people, you’ll have higher dwell time, better engagement. More shares and likes, a larger reach, more ad recall.

Don’t believe me? The biggest employer brand activations have come from this mantra. Think about the famous Heineken Go Places interactive website, that brought cinema and consumer levels of craft to a simple ‘self-selector’. 

It was unexpected. It was ambitious. It was entertaining. It was featured in magazines and newspapers. And job applications went up by 300%. We should take note.

Entertainment doesn’t need to be silliness and irreverence. It can be niche, expert, behind the scenes. But it still needs bravery.

It can be software developers laughing about the fastest fails they’ve had to deal with. It can be that, filmed in a tongue-in-cheek horror film style. 

It can be delivery drivers forgetting the camera is there and falling about laughing with each other. It can be that, but filmed TV style with scenes just as iconic as something from Gogglebox.

It can be a graduate message delivered as a challenge. A proposition turned into a game. Anything that aims to entertain the audience.

How do we get there?

Emotional intelligence needs to be as much a part of the research as plain old intellectual intelligence.

For example, when listening in focus groups, it’s not (just) about what people are saying, but how they say it. When they get animated. When they get quiet.

And beyond the research, we must allow strategy to express feeling. Don’t discuss wants and needs, likes and dislikes. Discuss what people love, what they hate. Talk about moments. Use the word fun. Get people laughing - yes laughing - when discussing strategy.

(Laughter is a the secret sauce of insight. It shows the border between everyday and extreme, where fantastic ideas often come from.)

But entertainment is about more than having a good time. It’s about narrative, characters, stories told with your own special twist.

Look at your employer brand. Now look away for a few seconds and imagine you haven’t spent the last months or years crafting it, pouring your heart and soul into it. Imagine you’re not someone who cares deeply about your organisation.

Now look back at your brand.

Ask yourself… who would care? Why should they care? And what are they getting from it?

And most importantly, how does it make you feel?

Are you getting words like ‘interesting’ or ‘warm’ or ‘friendly’ or ‘natural’?

Fantastic, you’ve created an employer brand that will do the job of being a good shop window for people who walk past. It's probably enough, if you’re Apple. Or Nike.

And if you’re not a world-famous employer of choice? Well, if you want your employer brand to actually matter, you need to work harder.

You need to entertain.

Go get ‘em tiger.