Your brand’s next battleground is inside your business

For years, brand building was focused outward on campaigns, press coverage, ads, social. But in 2026, the real differentiator isn’t just how your brand communicates externally, it’s how your people carry the brand from the inside out.

Employee advocacy has become marketing’s next frontier. Not the fluffy kind (nobody’s won a client because Dave from accounts shared a photo of the office bake sale). The strategic kind: where your people are informed, inspired and trusted to be your most credible advocates.

Why this matters now

Audiences trust people more than logos. They believe employees before they believe campaigns. If your people can’t articulate your story, how can you expect the market to?

We’ve seen businesses spend serious money on brand campaigns while their own teams struggle to explain what the business does. That’s not just a missed opportunity; it’s a liability.

How to make advocacy work

From what we’ve seen, three things turn employee advocacy into a brand superpower:

1. Clarity. Your team needs the sharpest version of your story, no jargon, no fluff. If they can’t explain it in one line, nobody else will.
2. Confidence. Give people content, tools and permission. It’s not about forcing everyone to post on LinkedIn, it’s about making it easy to share when it matters.
3. Consistency. Advocacy has to align with external campaigns. If your ads say one thing and your employees say another, you’ve just diluted your credibility.

The point

Your brand’s next battleground isn’t in the media or on TikTok. It’s inside your business.

The companies that win will be the ones whose people live the brand, tell the story and amplify the message in ways no paid campaign ever could.

At Strand, we help clients join the dots, from internal comms to external campaigns, so employees don’t just work for the brand. They are the brand.