Brand, Identity and Reputation: Exploring, Creating New Realities ...

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The implementation of the corporate brand was examined by following a team of newly hired customer service employees through their introduction, training and work during their first three months of employment. I observed 13 full time call centre employees between 19 and 26 years of age. I began with moderate participant observations (Spradley, 1980) for week 1-3 during the training sessions. Then, interviews (Kvale & Brinckmann, 2001) were conducted in week 2-3. Finally, I individually shadowed (Czarniawska, 2003) 5 of the new staff members in order to explore how employees ‗performed‘ the corporate brand. I also collected training material, newsletters from the uppermanagement and emails sent via the teams distribution list. Findings and Contributions An overview of the findings is presented in the table 1 below. While theory adheres to the ideal of consistency, this empirical study shows that in practice consistency is difficult to obtain. Though MGP‘s management adopt the themes of integrated planning, aligning employees and coherent brand experiences in their rhetoric, the practices and consequences in reality show that the planning process is fragmented, the employees are positive but detached due to lack of knowledge and a cynical distanced front line stands in the way for coherency between brand promise and brand experience. Despite the lack of consistency between management‘s brand talk and brand action, which leads to a new brand decoupled from the organisational identity, the management still succeeds in reaching their corporate brand goal, namely changing the tainted image of MGP. In the press MGP is occasionally still accused of mis-treating their customers, being old fashion and bureaucratic, however now the management is armed with brand talk, a new vocabulary suitable for addressing the accusations. The management can and do always say, ―we are working on it‖. Therefore the brand talk serves a purposeful function as brand hypocrisy. The findings contribute to the extant corporate branding literature by challenges the assumption of consistency as the key to successful corporate branding (Balmer, 2001, Balmer & Gray, 2003, de Chernatony, 2002; Hatch & Schultz, 2001; 2003; 2008; Ind, 2001; Schultz, 2005, Schultz & de Chernatony, 2002). Even though the brand talk is not converted into brand actions, the brand talk has value in it self because it provides management with a new way of responding to angry customers or aggressive medias. The notion of brand hypocrisy supports Griffin‘s (2002) argument that the fundamental aim of the corporate brand are to respond to an uncertain environment, and the notion of consistency seem to be unable to embrace the diversity of stakeholders demands. This more political dimension of corporate branding is often overlooked. In the case of MGP the brand promise cannot be delivered by the organisation, because total customer orientation would be too costly. On the other hand is a lousy brand experience, due to cost cutting and employee reductions, difficult conveyed into a truthful brand promise. Then brand hypocrisy is a successful solution. Christensen, Morsing & Thyssen (2011) argue that discrepancies between desired identity and real identity may work to mobilise the organisation; this, however, seems not to be the case here. The desired identity simply seems too detached from the experienced reality. However, there is no real internal resistance or negative affects of the brand hypocrisy either, instead apathy seems to be the dominating response. Business continues as usual. While these findings are based on a single case study and are thus contextual, situational and not necessarily generalizable, they do support previous empirical research on the internal implementation of branding, in particular Papasolomou-Daukais studies from the UK Bank sector. As she puts it, ―Calling a tiger a sheep may not change its intrinsic nature, however well structured its disguise.‖ (Papasolomou-Daukais & Kitchen, 2004). 196
Table 1: Empirical Findings Theory Integrated planning Aligning employees Coherent brand experiences Rhetoric (management) Actions (organisation) Consequences (stakeholders) We take an holistic approach without any dividing lines between HR, Communication and Marketing Marketing is given the budgets HR is cut down in personnel HR management show no interest in how MGP‘s identity is presented New job ads are produced by HR to secure external consistency Internally the collaboration breaks down We need to change this from the inside Cascade communication via executives and middle managers Employee communication on the day of the launch Executives change the brand values in their cascade communication. Expectations are build among employees but only basic activities happen. We need to deliver on our brand promise. Front line is responsible for giving our customers a coherent brand experience The Call Centers are not included in the process. They launch the new corporate brand and values as just another campaign. The brand is not integrated into the performance measurement systems. The employees are punished for performing according to the brand promise. The employees become cynical distanced The CorpCom department is given the Employees are disappointed responsibility for internal mobilizing and remain uninformed. Empirical results Fragmented planning process Detached employees Cynical brand experiences References 1. Alvesson, M., & Kärreman, D., (2007) Constructing Mystery: Empirical Matters in Theory Development. Academy of Management Review, 32(4), pp. 1265-1281 2. Balmer, J.M.T. (2001). The three virtues and seven deadly sins of corporate branding. Journal of General Management, 27(1), pp. 1-17 3. Balmer, J.M.T., & Gray, E. R. (2003). Corporate brands: what are they? What of them? European Journal of Marketing, 37(7/8), pp. 972-997 4. Brunsson, N. (1993). Ideas and Actions: Justification and hypocrisy as alternatives to control. Accounting, Organizations and Society, vol 18(6), pp. 489-506 5. Brunsson, N. (2003a). The organization of hypocrisy: Talk, decisions and actions in organizations (2 nd ed.). Oslo: Liber 6. Brunsson, N. (2003b). Organized hypocrisy. Charniawska, B., & Sevón, G. (Eds.), The northern lights – Organization theory in Scandinavia. Copenhagen, Denmark: Copenhagen Business School Press, pp. 201-222 7. Christensen, L.T, Morsing, M., & Cheney, G. (2008). Corporate Communications. Convention, Complexity, and Critique. London: Sage 8. Christensen, L.T., Morsing, M., & Thyssen, O. (2011). The polyphony of corporate social responsibility. Deconstructing accountability and transparency in the context of identity and hypocrisy. Cheney, G., May, S. and Munshi, D. (Eds). Handbook of Communication Ethics. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers, pp. 457-474 9. De Chernatony, L. (2002). Would a Brand Smell any Sweeter by a Corporate Name? Corporate Reputation Review, 5(2/3), pp. 114-132 10. Czarniawska, B. (2007) Shadowing, and Other Techniques for Doing Fieldwork in Modern Societies. Slovenia: Liber, Copenhagen Business School Press, Universitetsforlaget. 11. Griffin, J.J. (2002). To Brand or Not To Brand? Trade-offs in Corporate Branding Decisions. Corporate Reputation Review, vol 5(2/3), pp. 228- 240 12. Hatch, M.J., & Schultz, M. (2001). Are the strategic stars aligned for your corporate brand? Harvard Business Review (February), pp. 128-13 13. Hatch, M.J., & Schultz, M. (2003). Bringing the corporation into corporate branding. European Journal of Marketing, vol. 37(7/8), pp. 1041-64 14. Hatch, M.J., & Schultz, M. (2008). Taking Brand Initiative. San Fransisco: Jossey-Bass 15. Ind (2001). Living the brand. London: Kogan Page 16. Kvale, S., & Brinkmann, S. (2009) InterViews: Learning the craft of qualitative 17. research interviewing (2nd Ed.). London: Sage Publications. 18. Papasolomou-Daukais, I., & Kitchen, P. (2004). Internal marketing in UK banks: conceptual legitimacy or window dressing? International Journal of Bank Marketing, 22(6), pp. 421-452. 19. Schultz, M. (2005). A cross-disciplinary perspective on corporate branding. Schultz, M., Antorini, Y.M., & Csaba, F.F. Corporate Branding. Purpose/People/Process. Denmark: Copenhagen Business School Press 20. Schultz, M., & de Chernatony, L. (2002). Introduktion. The Challenges of Corporate Branding. Corporate Reputation Review, 5(2/3), pp. 105-112 21. Spradley, J.P. (1980) Participant Observation. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston 197
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Book of Proceedings Brand, Identity
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Session 1.1 Emotional Branding in T
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p.31) consumers tend to those sourc
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Tables and figures Brand perception
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Malaysia‘s Global Halal Hub - ―
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Birds of a Feather Consume Sports T
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Session 1.2 How is Social Media, li
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2. Interviews made with the adminis
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Table-5 Facebook Members of Homeles
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content (UGC) or even direct intera
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Fierman, (1991) found that 47% of c
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Multiple Dimensions of Brand Identi
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Session 1.3 Corporate Identity, Cor
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CSR are the ideals and ethics of co
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Corporate Brand Identity Management
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To study the influence of B2B relat
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Antecedents And Consequences Of Bra
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22. Gurviez, P., and Korchia, M. (2
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Non-monetary factors, such as effor
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23. Holbrook, M.B. (2006). Consumpt
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Brand Extensions and Culture: The I
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avoidance tend to prefer more infor
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Virtual Internal Brand Communities:
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References 1. Algesheimer, R., Dhol
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associations based on their percept
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shift in the psychological contract
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10. Berthon, P., Ewing, M., & Hah,
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Session 2.1 Global Brand Relationsh
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G. Brand Personality Excitement Hon
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The Impact of Relationship Marketin
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‗United 2010-one for all, all for
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Brand Equity Trends in Top Global B
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Uncovering ‗Meanings‘ through A
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45. Melewar, T.C. and Saunders, J.
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Thus, from a design perspective, we
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Keywords Brands, marketing, meaning
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How Important is the Brand Name Ele
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References 1. Aaker, D. (1991). Man
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Simon Cowell and Branding the X Fac
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Dead or Living: Which Celebrity To
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Reference 1. Bagozzi, R.P. & Yi, Y.
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has been adopted and within this an
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Organizational Factors Contributing
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examine and reconcile existing lite
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Effects of Corporate Social Respons
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15. Morsing M, & Schultz M. (2006).
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1989). But if the information avail
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An Inquiry into Corporate Heritage
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3. Balmer, J. M. T., & Greyser, S.
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Research questions and methodology
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Building Corporate Reputation: A Di
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Session 3.1 Financial vs. Consumer-
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For indicating brand equity, one of
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Financial Brand Valuation: an exper
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Figure 1 Religiously Motivated Cons
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I Don‘t Like It! - Understanding
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Session 3.2 Advertising Agency Empl
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applications of the Repertory Test
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The Life Cycle of Mavens Lynne Free
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Exploring the relationship between
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internal branding process. Internal
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proper branding strategy. With the
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Profiling the Image of Urban Busine
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Finally, the paper confirms the cau
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Table 3 Image differences according
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associated with the brand‖ (Aaker
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Figure 1 - Number of adjectives sel
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Figure 5 - Main attributes of a gol
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Empirical Studies For both studies,
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Figure 2: Perception of the City of
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Co-branding places? Andrea Lucarell
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12. Lucarelli, A., & Berg, P. O. (2
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Page 155 and 156: Results The demographic profile ind
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Page 159 and 160: Plenary Session 2 Brand Performance
Page 161 and 162: Uncles, M.D. & Kwok, S. (2008). Gen
Page 163 and 164: Brand Management Framework Empirica
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Page 169 and 170: Concentrating on the actual practic
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Page 183 and 184: A brand-driven strategy oriented to
Page 185 and 186: Rheingold, H. (1993). The Virtual C
Page 187 and 188: A Framework for Public Sector Brand
Page 189 and 190: Conclusion Public sector organisati
Page 191 and 192: A strategic investigation into the
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Page 195: Brand Hypocrisy Sanne Frandsen, Cop
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Page 201 and 202: Determinants Brand Orientation Va
Page 203 and 204: When Individual Experience becomes
Page 205 and 206: Impact of Storytelling on Consumer
Page 207 and 208: The Role of Communication in Establ
Page 209 and 210: Culture‘s Influence on Consumer P
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Page 213 and 214: Analysis and results We assessed th
Page 215 and 216: An Exploration of Own Brand Retaile
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Page 219 and 220: When investigating unique significa
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Page 237 and 238: Session 8.3 Brand Attitudes and the
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Based on the results some general c
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Data was collected by independent j
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Sonic branding: A review of literat
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How is green seen? Exploring the im
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were in evidence. The inability to
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Generally speaking, people use exte
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How Retail Banks Use Atmosphere to
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Actually, we don‘t feel constrain
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Introduction Reputation and Financi
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Chun, R. & Davies G. (2009). Employ
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Identity, Reputation and Organizati
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Introduction Factors Affecting Bran
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A quiet important approach then bec
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27. Gentry, C.R., ―Building on Br
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Together these issues have resulted
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elations. If the contact persons tr
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How do you Really Know? Exploring B
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Originality/value The psychology li
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asked ―did you see any of these c
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expressivity (Ω experts = 0,96 p
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Next are brand associations, also r
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Table 1: Selection of variables, it
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Special Session Issues in Brand Gov
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A Competance based Brand: Meaning a
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Session 12.4 Special Session Topic:
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Brand Meaning Co-Creation of Newcom
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Leonor Vacas de Carvalho, Évora Un
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Ronaldo Schutz, University of the A
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