In this special edition of the VMJPod's Employer Brand Series, series co-host Brie Mason (AMP) is in the hot seat, talking to David Macciocca and VideoMy's Gavin Lamb about how she built an employer brand from absolute ground zero – for a digital bank that didn't even have a name yet.

Brie shares the challenge of joining a greenfield project to build Australia's best digital bank in 12 months, starting with zero brand, zero assets and zero employees. Her first week wasn't about recruitment marketing tactics, it was fundamental questions: What is this business? What's the name? Nobody had the answers yet.

The conversation reveals how Brie recruited startup-minded talent (competing with Atlassian and Canva) while representing a traditional corporate brand. Her strategy? Get license to be disruptive. She launched campaigns with messaging like "teaching an old dog new tricks," pushed into TikTok and Instagram during the Christmas hiring lull, and built an ambassador program from day one – coaching new starters with cheat sheets, sentence starters, and Copilot prompts.

The defining moment came six months in when the CEO, wearing branded merch at a pub, was asked by a bartender: "What's it like to work at the new AMP bank? I've seen so much buzz everywhere." That's when it hit home, the employer brand-led market entry had worked.

Must listen for employer brand professionals facing the challenge of building a strategy, especially those working in startups, new business units, or organisations undergoing transformation where traditional approaches won't work.

Key Topics:
02:30 – Ground zero reality: No brand, no name, no answers
05:00 – Interviewing stakeholders to collectively form the vision
07:30 – Building ambassadors from day one: Every new starter becomes a storyteller
10:00 – "Teaching an old dog new tricks": Getting approval for disruptive messaging
13:00 – TikTok and Instagram strategy during Christmas hiring season
16:00 – Balancing authentic content with corporate risk (and handling trolls)
20:00 – Including consultants in your ambassador program and referral rewards
23:00 – The referral program secret: Pay for leads, not placements
26:00 – Weekly stand-ups, Teams chat assets, and shameless promotion tactics
28:00 – The pub moment: When employer brand drives consumer brand awareness

If you want to learn more about activating your employer brand strategy and EVP then you can check out podcast.videomyjob.com for a library of industry perspectives and how-to's.

Now, if you’re ready to level up your activation strategy then you need an employee story video platform and that’s what we do! Go to videomyjob.com/demo to book a walkthrough with one of our video specialists.

Lastly, we’d love for you to help us spread the word about the VMJPod to attract new experts and practitioners to share their activation strategies, so please take a screenshot and post it on LinkedIn, don’t forget to tag us at VideoMy, we are so grateful when you do that!

In this edition of VMJPod's Employer Brand Series, hosts David Macciocca and Brie Mason sit down with Natasha Sweatman from Telstra's Employer Brand and Marketing team to unpack how to build and scale an authentic employee ambassador program.

Natasha manages nearly 200 Telstra brand ambassadors, what she calls "Telstra influencers", and shares the surprisingly simple systems that make it work. No fancy platforms, just a Teams channel where she posts "casting calls" for content needs and ambassadors self-select to participate. The approach is deliberately light-touch and informal, respecting that people have day jobs and shouldn't be nagged into creating content on top of their real work.

The conversation reveals how Telstra's program has evolved from a rigid content calendar to a flexible brand advocacy model where ambassadors engage, amplify, and create content aligned to Telstra's EVP pillars: belonging, opportunity, flexibility and technology. Natasha shares her approach to incentives (merch, internal recognition points, and early access to campaigns), how she tracks performance through monthly "top post" competitions, and why the hardest part isn't building the program – it's maintaining engagement while respecting people's time.

For organisations starting out, Natasha's advice is clear: don't take it too seriously, align content to your EVP, segment your ambassadors by key talent groups, and make it fun. The goal isn't just recruitment marketing, it's empowering employees to share their stories and build their personal brands.

Key Topics:
03:30 – Why authentic employee stories outperform corporate messaging
05:20 – The simple Teams channel system managing 200 ambassadors
07:40 – Balancing strategic content needs with employee authenticity
10:30 – Incentives that work: Recognition, merch, and early campaign access
14:00 – The personal branding pitch: What's in it for employees?
18:00 – Managing the reality of employee turnover in branded content
22:00 – Monthly "top post" competitions that gamify engagement
26:00 – Measuring ambassador program impact through recruitment campaigns
30:00 – Personal branding workshops: From grads to executives

If you want to learn more about activating your employer brand strategy and EVP then you can check out podcast.videomyjob.com for a library of industry perspectives and how-to's.

Now, if you’re ready to level up your activation strategy then you need an employee story video platform and that’s what we do! Go to videomyjob.com/demo to book a walkthrough with one of our video specialists.

Lastly, we’d love for you to help us spread the word about the VMJPod to attract new experts and practitioners to share their activation strategies, so please take a screenshot and post it on LinkedIn, don’t forget to tag us at VideoMy, we are so grateful when you do that!

In this Sydney edition of the VMJPod’s Employer Brand Series, hosts David Macciocca and Brie Mason are joined by Manuel Lopes, Employer Brand and Communications Lead at CPA Australia, to explore how employer brand is built, sustained and protected inside a member-based organisation.

Manuel shares how CPA Australia approaches employer brand through internal alignment, communication and credibility, and why trust must be earned internally before it can be amplified externally. The conversation unpacks the close relationship between employer brand and internal communications, the role of consistency in shaping perception, and how storytelling helps bring strategy to life.

Together, they discuss navigating complexity in purpose-led organisations, aligning leaders and employees around a shared narrative, and why employer brand work is as much about influence and clarity as it is about content.

This episode will resonate with employer brand, communications and people leaders focused on building trust, consistency and belief across large, values-driven organisations.

Key Topics:
01:10 – Manuel’s role spanning employer brand and communications in a member-based organisation.
03:00 – How employer brand shows up differently inside purpose-led organisations.
05:00 – The link between employer brand and internal communications.
07:10 – Why credibility must be built internally before being projected externally.
09:20 – Aligning leaders and employees around a shared narrative.
11:30 – The role of clarity and consistency in shaping perception.
13:40 – Using storytelling to connect strategy with everyday employee experience.
15:50 – Navigating complexity and competing priorities in large organisations.
18:00 – How employer brand supports trust, engagement and belief.
20:10 – Partnering across teams to influence employer brand outcomes.
22:20 – The challenges of maintaining consistency at scale.
24:30 – Why employer brand is as much about influence as it is about content.
26:40 – Measuring impact beyond outputs and activity.
28:40 – Avoiding performative employer branding and staying authentic.
30:40 – Embedding employer brand into communication rhythms and behaviours.
32:40 – Advice for teams balancing strategy, storytelling and execution.
35:00 – Reflections on trust, alignment and long-term employer brand impact.

If you want to learn more about activating your employer brand strategy and EVP then you can check out podcast.videomyjob.com for a library of industry perspectives and how-to's.

Now, if you’re ready to level up your activation strategy then you need an employee story video platform and that’s what we do! Go to videomyjob.com/demo to book a walkthrough with one of our video specialists.

Lastly, we’d love for you to help us spread the word about the VMJPod to attract new experts and practitioners to share their activation strategies, so please take a screenshot and post it on LinkedIn, don’t forget to tag us at VideoMy, we are so grateful when you do that!