Suntory — EMPLOYEE VALUE PROPOSITION

 
 

Displaying the passion and spirit of a career at Suntory to employees and future talent.

We developed a new EVP that captured the Suntory employer brand and best represented the brand values.

THE CLIENT

Suntory Group is a global leader in consumer-packaged goods, producing and distributing a uniquely diverse portfolio of beverages, premium spirits, beer and wine, and wellness products throughout the world.

Founded in 1899 in Japan, Suntory has grown to over 40,000 people and over 250 companies across the globe. Their focus has always been on enriching people’s lives with the products and services they offer as well as by coexisting with society and the natural environment.

Date

Project Start Date: February 2019

Project Finish Date:  August 2021 (with ongoing implementation support)

Service

Employee Value Proposition (EVP)

The Challenge

Originally a project with Suntory Beverage & Food (SBF) to bring all their employees on the journey to create an SBF EVP, research concluded and stakeholder engagement with Suntory Holdings began. The project expanded to cover the Suntory Group globally.  This included all of their 40,000 employee headcount across EMEA, JAPAC & The Americas.

The project scope included measuring workplace motivation to understand their drivers across the multiple international markets, designing creative ways to engage key stakeholders and representative groups in multiple markets, and collating data from all research sources to design, develop and build an Employee Value Proposition that has the ability to be tailored at a local level.

The team worked closely with the Suntory Holdings team as well as Mercer to identify key points of difference and offerings to remain competitive and achieve attraction of global talent. The challenge was to capture all the insights that came through in the research phase and develop an authentic EVP that also united all of Suntory as one.

The Process

 
 

Following our unique approach, Corporate Crayon led the end-to-end process of redeveloping SBF’s EVP.

 

  • Discovery - the most important stage of any project is our discovery research phase. For this project we conducted a workshop with key stakeholders, interviews and multiple focus groups in addition to other critical research within the organisation to uncover key insights

  • Connection - a thorough review and analysis was conducted of the audience, insights, and brand to craft the brand story, tagline and create the assets

  • Human - bringing to life the EVP with a human-centred approach. This included an authentic EVP that reflects the sentiment of working at Suntory, thereby taking all the feedback into account.

  • Considered Design - crafting a brand story and key messaging and creating the branding to complement the EVP.

  • Individual Simplicity - implementing the EVP by creating various assets, templates, and playbook with the help of our experienced design team


The Research

  • Duration of research phase: 11 months

  • Review of Group Companies’ EVP Work

  • Senior Stakeholder Interviews: Conducted globally, 1:1 interviews across SBF and Suntory Holdings

  • Engagement Survey Results: Employee responses across all markets (EMEA, APAC, Americas)

  • Mercer EVP Survey: Online across 20 countries globally

  • Focus Groups: 25 Focus Groups with 325+ participants across 10 markets (EMEA, APAC, Americas)

  • Senior Leader Cross Functional Workshop: Conducted in Japan (15 participants)

  • HRD Discussions/Stakeholder Meetings throughout the project


The Key Outcomes

The EVP initiative aimed to establish a clear alignment between Suntory Holding’'s identity, company culture, and the promises made to employees regarding their career paths and potential impact within the organisation. This is brought to life by the expression 'Unleash Your Spirit' as well as the brand story, which raises awareness and understanding of Suntory as an employer and fosters a sense of pride and belonging among employees worldwide.

 Evelyn and the team at Corporate Crayon helped us develop and implement an EVP that united our teams across the Suntory brands. With their focus on understanding our people and cultures, extensive research and authentic creative they captured the essence of who we are. If you are looking for an agency that will work in partnership and deliver great work, look no further.

- Sarah Langley, SVP Chief People, Culture & Communications Officer at Suntory

Some of the deliverables as part of this project:

  • Talent analysis

  • Employer brand strategy

  • Employer brand story - as expressed in three key pillars “We Are Suntory”, “Make the Change You Want to See” and “Crafting our Future Together” - tying in with the Suntory values

  • Employer branding with clear brand guidelines with application examples

  • EVP key messaging, tone of voice and communication guidelines

  • EVP activation playbook: Guide to Suntory’s EVP and best practice activation of the EVP internally to engage with existing current and externally to attract and recruit future talent


The Brand Story:

 
 

Assets:

Visual identity design

 
 

EVP Video

 
 

Social media tiles

 
 

Virtual backgrounds

 
 
 

Posters: a set of posters each highlighting each EVP brand pillar

 
 
 

Additional collateral: for internal and external use

 
 
 
 

The Final Result?

An EVP that is truly representative of the Suntory brand and values. The EVP “Unleash Your Spirit” fits in perfectly with the brand story and takes inspiration from the rich history of the company. It was developed and successfully adopted globally because of the extensive ‘discovery’ work conducted by our experts, the collaboration and partnership between Suntory Holdings and Corporate Crayon and our deep understanding of the cultural nuances that exist for a global company of this size.

 

Measuring the effectiveness of an Employee Value Proposition (EVP) is just as important as implementing one. With a focus on understanding the baseline perception of the brand as an employer and evaluating how those perceptions change over time and impact the employee experience, we were able to develop application and implementation tools and guidelines that could be easily measured.  To gauge this effectively, various metrics and feedback mechanisms are utilised, each providing unique insights into the impact of the EVP, relevant to Suntory Holdings.

 

  • Employee Testimonials

  • Managerial or Leadership Insights/Feedback

  • Cultural Alignment

  • Recruitment Metrics

CLIENT FEEDBACK

 Evelyn and the team at Corporate Crayon helped us develop and implement an EVP that united our teams across the Suntory brands. With their focus on understanding our people and cultures, extensive research and authentic creative they captured the essence of who we are. If you are looking for an agency that will work in partnership and deliver great work, look no further.

- Sarah Langley, SVP Chief People, Culture & Communications Officer at Suntory

Let us partner with you to create an impactful employee value proposition! Contact us today.

Branding design, EVPJo Murphy- Employer Branding, EVP