Kipawa has evolved to deliver world-class recruitment marketing and digital transformation solutions for growth-seeking employers.
2 months ago, we announced our exciting new brand identity for Kipawa, and today, we want to introduce the “new us” in a little bit more detail.
The Kipawa brand was first introduced within the Kenyan market about 4 years ago, with a relatively simple focus on recruitment as an executive search firm. It was over these 4 years that we discovered more about ourselves, what we’re proficient at and what really matters to our clients (and those who aren't our clients) - this was our evolutionary path to who we are today.
We’re still the same Kipawa as before, just with a more focused mission and a funky new collection of brand colours.
Kipawa's new mission for Kenyan employers
Our updated mission is very simple: we want to make your business a magnet for talent. Kipawa's new operational direction is to deliver world-class recruitment marketing and digital transformation solutions for growth-seeking employers. We've known for a long time that there's more to just helping companies fill a role - it's about empowering them to showcase their employer brand more effectively to fill roles with the best talent, all in an effort to retain those who are already employed.
From the perspective of employers, we updated our mission around the premise that they could be missing top talent due to the following:
1) People Talk All Year Long. Reputation Matters
Candidates passively, but constantly consume messaging and content about a company's behaviour, values, and trends. The greatest threat to any employer brand is staying silent about who you are and what you stand for. Doing so is an invitation to competitors and disgruntled staff to create perceptions about you and define your narrative. People talk - if you as a company wait until the very moment someone is actually looking to make a career move to start telling them all about yourself, you might already be too late.
2) Your Marketing Team Doesn’t Support People Operations
It's safe to say that in the Kenyan market, employer branding is often overlooked by traditional marketing teams. A lot of focus is generally put into driving new leads, to garner increased sales, but by forgetting to amplify their work or employer reputation, their story becomes too "corporate-y" and doesn't tell a story about how great it is to work within their business.
3) HR Teams Are Bad Marketers (but we love them - promise)
HR teams within companies rarely have access to the budgets or resources to create compelling content about their company and they don't have the voice developed to effectively present themselves broadly to the public.
4) The Problem With Big Tech in Kenya
A couple of big companies in Silicon Valley have tried address this gap. Glassdoor is one example, but it's become a place for the most disgruntled employees to make noise, and they don't support employers. LinkedIn is a publishing platform, but only effective for the biggest companies with the biggest budgets and the biggest teams to produce relevant content in-house or through agency partners... not a good fit for the Kenyan market.
5) An Unmet Need (where we can help)
The result is a huge unmet need for teams to reach talent, and for talent to discover important information about potential employers. Candidates are hungry for inspirational and insightful content that can help them make the next big career leap.
A set of new visuals to match our values
The theme of our new visual brand is focused around the sunrise of a new day - called, "The Gift". There's something so special about a new day - it brings new opportunities and shines a light to direct you on the path of your choice.
Our core focus is delivering the gift of new opportunities to employers & job seekers throughout Africa. 'Kipawa' in Swahili refers to the gift within each of us - our innate and unique talents and abilities - to give to the world.
The development of our creative messaging and visual approach was aligned to our current set of internal values - this was important to get right because we had to have something which truly set us apart from the competition in our market.
We look forward to drawing inspiration from our new mission & vision, and expanding on it going forward. We're also so excited to be providing a brand new suite of services to our current & future client base. There's so much in store for everyone at Kipawa and we're excited to continue on our path to changing the recruitment landscape in Kenya, and beyond!
