Review on corporate brand management models

What is it about?

Recent decades have witnessed increased discussion about the issue of corporate brand management through corporate brand alignment. Central to such debate is whether a corporate brand should remain a unique entity and consistently communicated as such to its stakeholders. Others question this approach to corporate brand management, pointing to the unstable nature of the environment and diversity of stakeholders involved. In the present work, I conducted a review of these conflicting propositions. I used dialectical methodology to consider existing approaches to corporate brand management (i.e., corporate brand alignment), identifying “contradictory elements” and then presenting a new unified framework. This “dialectic triad” is respectively referred to as thesis, antithesis and synthesis. Use of a dialectical position is warranted on the basis that challenging existing assumptions might enhance strategic decision-making within a firm and inspire positive change.

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Why is it important?

This work proposes a contingency approach to corporate brand management, suggesting that there is no single best way of managing a corporate brand: aligned, separated and mixed approaches can be equally successful. Despite the choice of model (which arises from the analysis of the corporate brand meanings, stakeholders and contexts), three transversal corporate brand management imperatives emerged: the delivery of the corporate brand promise, the co-construction of corporate brand meanings and the recognition of the dynamic nature of corporate brands.