Corporate Brand Management in
Date
2011-06-15
Authors
Siso, Linda
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Abstract
Global trends have shown a shift in marketing emphasis from product
branding to corporate branding. Some of the reasons cited by prior research
for this shift were: high consumer expectations; anti-branding movements
that demand a visible link between product brands with companies that
produce them; high rising costs in advertising; commoditisation of products;
and highly competitive and unstable markets.
There is limited practical evidence in the corporate branding field. As such
the purpose of the research was to identify the critical success factors of
corporate branding in the South African context. In addition the degree to
which South African companies have adopted a strategic and crossfunctional
approach to corporate branding was investigated.
A structured questionnaire was designed and analysed using quantitative
research methodology. 100 respondents from 4 industries completed the
questionnaire. The research findings identified 3 critical success factors of
corporate branding. They were the important role that employees play; top
managements’ role and cross functional team alignment; and customer
involvement and interaction.
In addition the research found that the surveyed South African companies
were still far from adopting a strategic and cross-functional approach of
corporate branding. Only 3 out of a possible 10 principles were identified as
being in place towards the adoption of a strategic and cross-functional
approach to corporate branding. The 3 principles identified were:
respondents agreed that they were aware of their organisations’ identity;
that their organisation’s vision was realistic and that their organisations used
contact points with stakeholders to build relationships. In addition the
respondents felt that their organisations were not giving adequate attention
to corporate branding; providing adequate resources to implement a
corporate brand strategy, and there was not enough understanding of the
paradoxes of their brands
Description
MBA - WBS
Keywords
Brand management, Brands and branding