The Mindsets that Drive Effective Brand Advocacy

Liu Shu, Senior HR Business Partner, Jaguar Land Rover China

Liu Shu is a Senior HR Business Partner at Jaguar Land Rover China. She began her journey with the company as Head of Talent Acquisition, leading employer branding, recruitment and integration programs for new hires. In 2024, she contributed to a restructuring project to shape the commercial team to be more agile, efficient, effective and customer-focused. This experience marked her transition into HR business partnering. Since January 2025, Shu has supported the commercial organization spanning sales, marketing, communications, customer experience and field operations, focusing on organization development, talent management and employee engagement.

Through this article, Shu explains that Jaguar Land Rover’s brand strength comes from aligning corporate, employer and product branding, with employees as authentic ambassadors. At the same time, she stresses that, with the rise of NEVs in China, employees’ resilience, passion, collaboration and win–win mindset are essential for sustaining the brand’s identity and future growth.

Building a Holistic Brand Ecosystem

When you strip away all the complexity, effective branding comes down to three interconnected elements that must work harmoniously.

The foundation starts with what happens inside the organization. Creating an exceptional employee experience through safety, meaningful benefits and genuine growth opportunities becomes your most powerful differentiator. People notice when a company truly invests in its workforce. When someone says, “That’s a great place to work” and chooses you over established competitors, that internal strength radiates outward. The best brand advocates have always been employees who genuinely believe in where they work.

This internal foundation directly feeds into product excellence. Modern luxury and authentic customer experiences don’t emerge from corporate mandates or marketing campaigns. They develop when teams are empowered, engaged and aligned around shared values. The evolution from traditional dual brands into distinct household names like Discovery, Defender and Range Rover happened because the culture supported innovation and bold thinking. Product brand strength grows from organizational health.

External communication becomes almost effortless when the first two elements are solid. Sharing market insights, technology updates and corporate developments with stakeholders feels natural rather than forced. The corporate brand simply reflects what already exists rather than trying to create something nonexistent. Authenticity in external messaging comes from having something genuine to communicate.

The fundamental insight is how these elements amplify each other. A strong internal culture produces better products, which makes external communication more credible, attracts better talent and strengthens the culture. Most organizations try to build these elements separately or in the wrong sequence. The companies that understand this interconnection build lasting market positions.

Empowering Employees as Authentic Brand Ambassadors

The most valuable lesson in employee brand advocacy is that authenticity cannot be manufactured. Real influence spreads through natural networks of passionate individuals who act as internal opinion leaders. They exist in every company, yet leadership often ignores or tries to control them instead of empowering them.

What works is building genuine pathways for engagement. Exclusive communities where knowledge sharing happens organically outperform corporate broadcasts. When senior leaders from product and marketing teach brand DNA and communication skills directly, employees understand what to say and why it matters. Training in photography or social media equips them to tell stories authentically rather than recite scripted lines.

Experience matters more than instruction. Letting employees test-drive products and hear development stories from those who built them creates connections no manual can match. These immersive moments turn abstract brand ideas into lived understanding. A person who has felt how a vehicle responds or learned the reasoning behind a design shares with genuine enthusiasm, not obligation.

“The most valuable lesson in employee brand advocacy is that authenticity cannot be manufactured. Real influence spreads through natural networks of passionate individuals who act as internal opinion leaders”

Recognition should feel peer-driven, not hierarchical. Platforms where colleagues acknowledge each other spark authentic engagement, while celebrating proud moments openly builds momentum that spreads naturally across social channels.

The breakthrough comes when employees stop acting as messengers and start acting as storytellers. Audiences instantly notice the difference when content is shared out of genuine connection, not compliance. Authentic advocacy takes longer to build than traditional communications, but its credibility and staying power are far greater.

Balancing Tradition and Transformation through Employees

The speed of market disruption in emerging sectors like new energy vehicles has taught me something fundamental about competitive dynamics. When an entire category explodes overnight with dozens of well-funded startups achieving rapid penetration, the rules change entirely. What seemed like gradual industry evolution suddenly becomes an existential race.

Traditional manufacturers face a particular challenge in these moments. The temptation is to abandon everything that made you distinctive or ignore the disruption entirely. Both approaches usually fail. The companies that navigate this successfully determine how to preserve their core identity while adapting their execution. Heritage, luxury positioning and performance credentials don’t become irrelevant during electrification. They become more critical as differentiators when technology commoditizes.

Building a clear strategy becomes essential, but strategy alone isn’t enough when markets move this fast. The people inside the organization need to understand the strategy and why certain elements remain non-negotiable while others must evolve. This understanding can’t be superficial. When employees truly grasp which aspects of brand identity transcend technology shifts and which tactical approaches need constant adjustment, they become more effective advocates.

Market velocity makes internal alignment even more critical. External messaging feels scattered and reactive when teams aren’t aligned on fundamental principles. However, when people understand the logic behind strategic choices, they can adapt their communication naturally as conditions change. They know what stories to tell consistently and what details to modify based on new developments.

The organizations that thrive through this kind of disruption are the ones where brand ambassadorship feels intuitive rather than scripted. People can’t effectively represent something they don’t understand, especially when the landscape shifts monthly rather than yearly.

The Mindsets That Carry Us Forward

Watching young professionals develop into genuine brand ambassadors over the years has revealed some patterns that most leadership teams miss. The conventional focus on skills training and product knowledge only gets you so far.

Resilience proves to be the foundation on which everything else builds. In today’s competitive landscape, setbacks happen constantly. Markets shift, strategies pivot, projects get canceled. The people who eventually become your strongest representatives aren’t necessarily the most talented initially. They’re the ones who can absorb disappointment and keep moving forward. This quality can’t be taught through workshops, but it can be recognized and nurtured when you see it.

Passion amplifies resilience exponentially. When someone genuinely cares about the work rather than just career advancement, their staying power increases dramatically. This kind of deep engagement shows up in how they talk about challenges. Instead of complaining about difficulty, they frame problems as puzzles worth solving. That mindset shift is visible to everyone around them, including customers and partners.

Collaboration transforms individual passion into collective momentum. The most effective brand ambassadors understand that working alongside others multiplies impact rather than diluting it. They actively seek partnerships, share credit generously and learn from colleagues across different functions. This collaborative instinct makes their brand advocacy feel authentic rather than self-serving.

The most powerful quality ties everything together. Success becomes sustainable when people genuinely focus on creating value for others rather than advancing personal agendas. When someone’s efforts consistently benefit colleagues, customers and the broader community, their advocacy carries natural credibility. They’re not pushing messages because they’re supposed to. They’re sharing something they believe will help others.

This win-win orientation separates authentic ambassadors from people just following talking points. The difference is immediately apparent to anyone listening.

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