Corporate branding
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Corporate branding is the practice of using a company's name as a product brand name. It is an attempt to leverage corporate brand equity to create product brand recognition. It is a type of family branding or umbrella brand. Disney, for example, includes the word "Disney" in the name of many of its products; among many other examples are IBM, Pepsi, and Coca-Cola.
Corporate branding can result in significant economies of scope since one advertising campaign can be used for several products. It also facilitates new product acceptance because potential buyers are already familiar with the name. Proper brand marketing is probably one of the most important things a company who is trying to break into a market and billions of dollars could be spent to try and make this happen.
A significant drawback to this strategy is that products may not be treated individually, which reduces the focus on the products' unique characteristics. Another potential disadvantage of corporate branding is that the corporate name can become synonymous with a product category. Examples of this phenomenon are Kleenex and Tampax. Even purchasers of Charmin, a competitor to Kleenex, sometimes refer to the product as Kleenex. Although having such a dominant mind share is usually encouraged, the downside is that such genericised trademarks can lose their trademark protection.
Corporate branding is not limited to a specific mark or name. Branding can be summed up into several touchpoints. These touchpoints include; logo, customer service, treatment and training of employees, packaging, advertising, stationery, quality of products and services, and even things like cleanliness if the company has a retail store. Anytime the general public sees, hears, or comes into contact with a specific brand, the branding team has thought about it and has found a way to weave a positive brand image into it.
Corporate branding is also not limited to newer companies. There is a process called rebranding that older companies do to try to clean a tarnished past or try out a new market. One of the large examples of this is McDonald's. Starting a few years ago McDonald's started redesigning and rebuilding old buildings and updating them with a newer modern look and have been marketing themselves toward more of a sit down atmosphere. In this case the brand mark of the “Golden Arches” has not been changed, but the services have as well as the store environment to change public perception of the company. Other companies such as Guinness beer and the London Underground have been around for over 100 years and have not seen a commercial change.
Websites have also started to play a large role in corporate branding, the Internet is becoming more and more commercial and paid advertising is showing up on nearly everything. This is another touchpoint not listed above. The web's influence on companies has been extensive because it is a medium for exposure that has not been around very long and many companies have yet to really embrace this new form.
Successful corporate branding often stems from a strong coherence between what the company’s top management seek to accomplish (their strategic vision), what the company’s employees know and believe (lodged in its organizational culture), and how its external stakeholders perceived the company (their image of it). Misalignments between these three factors, in turn, indicate an underperforming corporate brand. This type of corporate brand analysis has been labeled the Vision-Culture-Image (VCI) Alignment Model. (Hatch & Schultz, 2008)
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[edit] Alternative Definition
“Corporate Branding” is the process of building and maintaining a brand at the institutional level. Corporate branding aims to create a favorable image and a positive identity relative to the company, with customers (existing and potential) in the target market. The goal of corporate branding is to leverage corporate brand equity in support of product brand equity. [1]
[edit] See also
- brand
- brand management
- family branding
- genericized trademark
- product management
- marketing
- trademark
- umbrella brand
- ((Branding strategies))
[edit] References
- ^ Gabriel Steinhardt (2008). "Concept of Marketing" (PDF). 2.0. . Blackblot Retrieved on 2008.
- Hatch, M. J. & Schultz, M. (2008) Taking Brand Initiative: How Companies Can Align Their Strategy, Culture and Identity Through Corporate Branding. San Franisco: Jossey Bass.
