Corporate Branding

Corporate Brand Thinking Beyond the Customer

Traditionally, the business world has focused its brand management attention on managing
the relationship between a customer and a product. Effective product-related brand
management will yield a relationship with a customer that is based upon a single dimension
usually defined around the attributes of the product.
Corporate brand-building is the art and science of building awareness, loyalty, preference and
value for companies directly, as opposed to the product brands they manage and market. It is
founded on the premise that brand communications, experiences and initiatives benefit
companies in important ways. Specifically, it aims to provide a broad range of financial and
strategic benefits that align with the company vision, mission and business strategy.
For corporate brands, business customers, channel partners, financial analysts, employees and
others take the place of consumers as primary audiences. At the same time, consumers might
remain a significant audience, too.)
Corporate brand is not new and most organization have one. Some organizations use their
corporate brands more effectively than others. Most organizations have a limited perspective
on corporate brand, viewing it either as a reputation management tool or as a master brand to
identify its products. When understood in a broader context, a well-managed corporate brand
can encompass a myriad of relationships, inside and outside the organization. This expanded
view of corporate brand extends the core discipline of brand building to a broader set of
relationships that impact the performance of the organization. A new, broader view of
corporate brand will provide a new powerful framework to implement a coordinated,
proactive corporate relationship building strategy.
This neo-corporate brand perspective requires a whole new paradigm for coordinating the
relationships inside and outside the organization. Neo-corporate brand management requires
the coordinated efforts of marketing and human resources. The core competency of the
marketing function is building relationships outside the organization (sometimes called
customer brand building). The human resources function has built a proven competency of
relationship building inside the organization (sometimes referred to as employer
branding).Each of these professions has by necessity differing perspectives on relationship

building. By

working

more

collegially

these

differing

perspectives

can

prove

complimentary. This cross-functional team working with a common purpose and shared
competency will deliver true innovation to the corporate relationship building process.
Delivering on the possibilities of a corporate relationship strategy will require among other
things:

A new cross-functional team approach that extends the brand competency and
responsibility beyond the marketing department.

A new approach to corporate brand that is embraced by the leadership team.

Be consistent in applying the proven brand-based relationship competency to each

targeted relationship that comprises the corporate brand portfolio.

Define and consistently use a corporate brand platform that clearly defines the
important relationship attributes of the corporate brand, starting with the
organizations brand ethos.

Measure the perceptions that surround each of the targeted brand relationships.

Implement relationship-building as a core competency as a part of the organizations

leadership development program.

Corporate relationship strategy is an innovative approach to consistently delivering value to

customers
Why Corporate Branding is important
Brand value is real
A strong corporate brand might or might not directly help a company to charge a premium for
its products or to command a premium on the trading floor. In principle, however, a strong
corporate brand can help to build a differential of attraction and loyalty among customers and
channel partners. Growing from that, a strong corporate brand should also be able to
command a differential of margin that comes from economies of scale of being the market
leader. Metrics can be developed around both of these differentials to assess how brand value
is being created over time.
One brand, many uses

That said, most companies look to their corporate brands to provide value in other, more
specific ways; from facilitating the introduction of new products, access to new markets,
entry into new channels and expansion of existing channels to more clearly articulating the
companys purpose and promise to the media and financial markets.
Internal brand building
Corporate brands can also play an important role inside organizations as well as outside: A
strong corporate brand, like a strong consumer brand, can help to make believers of a
companys employees, helping to drive morale, performance, and a consistent, positive
impression of the brand and the company behind it.
Theres been some talk in the last weeks about FMCG companies investing in and building
their corporate brands. Research by media monitoring company Precise, published in March
2013 says that consumers are more likely to view FMCG companies favourably if they
develop a recognisable corporate brand.
What all this proves is that the audience for corporate brands has extended beyond the
traditional confines of city, press and internal staff to include consumers, and the principles of
brand management are being applied. In fact, both Reckitt Benckiser and Unilever place so
much importance on their corporate brands that they use digital asset management systems to
manage them.
Back in 1931, P&G ad man Neil McElroy sent around his now famous memo explaining why
P&G should have a brand team for each product, paving the way for modern brand
management.
But in the last few years there has been a shift in consumer behaviour with people seeking out
information regarding who makes their products, the transparency of those companies and
their social, ethical and environmental behaviour. The emergence of private label branded
goods sold by major retailers such as Wal-Mart and Kroger in the USA and Tesco,
Sainsburys et al in the UK has had a major impact on the competitiveness of consumer retail.
The brand architecture of these retail giants is everything the multinationals are not. They
have a more focused and cost driven approach to branding with a single masterbrand across
all their products and can offer multiple products per category. The large FMCGs have to
rethink their single brand approach and build equity in the parent. Enlisted are a few
examples of how a few corporates have managed to build corporate brands.

1. Corporate brand the Hero

For years now LOral has placed its corporate brand centre stage across communications for
the products. The tag line Because youre worth it has made it one of most well known
corporate FMCG brands globally and one which scores highest in research on the key metrics
of trust and familiarity around the world.
The business operates in one broad beauty category (cosmetics, haircare and fragrance),
however, which makes this approach possible is the link with one basic corporate brand and
tag line.
2. Unifying visual identity- Rebranding
Unilever pioneered corporate rebranding when they unveiled the new U logo in the early
2000s, made up of interconnecting images symbolic of the brand categories they represent.
Corporate communications gave meaning to the U and shortly thereafter, the brands were
seen to be sporting the corporate symbol on the reverse of packaging, now seen on their
advertising as well.
3. Promote a specific area of your corporate business- CSR
Reckitt Benckiser (RB) went through a corporate rebranding with UK agency The Workroom
in 2007, introducing the colourful kite identity and introducing this onto their products.
RB places huge importance on their corporate social responsibility activity which feeds into
giving meaning to the corporate brand.
4. Corporate brand with a global event
In 2012, P&G spent $100m sponsoring the London Olympics using this platform to build the
profile of the corporate brand with their multi-brand Thank you, Mom campaign, resulting
in 600m social media views for the company and contributing to an uplift in sales of between
5 and 20% across 4mn stores globally.
5. Corporate brand as a mark of endorsement
Nestle has been hugely successful in building its business in developing countries where
there can be issues with product quality and consumers trust in them.
The corporate brand can help to bring reassurance and even speed in penetrating new
categories and bringing in new products to market.

Corporate Brand A Framework for Developing a Corporate Relationship Strategy

Success in business is all about relationships. The ability to leverage key relationships is an
outstanding performance driver for all successful businesses. There are many relationships
that impact an organizations performance: relationships with employees, customers,
distributors, strategic partners, prospective customers, potential employees, competitors, the
media, and the community-at-large. Every organization has a portfolio of relationships to
manage, some on the outside and others on the inside of the organization. Every organization
will benefit by having a corporate relationship strategy.
The aim of a corporate relationship strategy is to implement a coordinated relationshipbuilding effort for the organization. Too often managing the many different corporate
relationships is done in isolation. Like any other asset (business relationships are a good
example of an intangible asset) these relationships should be managed as a portfolio. And like
good portfolio management, these relationships should be managed in a coordinated fashion
to achieve a common goal. The common goal of a corporate relationship strategy is to
consistently improve the delivery of distinctive value to customers and establish a corporate
brand.
A pragmatic, proven framework is a necessary element to effectively implementing any
strategy. Brand must be used as the framework to manage a corporate relationship strategy
which in time builds the corporate brand. A brand is a relationship. And brand management is
the business discipline of creating and building a relationship for the purpose of improving
the performance of the business and establishing a corporate brand. Brand is a proven
relationship-building competency that can be used as a framework to implement a corporate
branding strategy.
Example
Johnson & Johnson Unveils New Corporate Branding Campaign
For all you love, Johnson & Johnson .
This comes after a tough several years for the company, which has dealt with multiple
product recalls and lawsuits.
One of the things that we wanted to be sure to do is move to really get past some of the
challenges weve had as a business, said Michael Sneed, VP of global corporate affairs.

Weve made great strides in that and we want to make sure we have a full conversation
about who J&J is. Were not perfect but we want people to understand that when we do make
mistakes, we own up to those mistakes and we want people to understand the values that are
behind J&J.
J&J ranked No. 6 of Americas 150 most reputable companies this year, dropping from No. 3
last year, according to The Reputation Institute.
We certainly are not oblivious to the rankings, Sneed said. The reputation of J&J is very
important to us. We take it very seriously. We have a lot of data that we look at, both
externally and internally, he said. I wouldnt say there was any one thing that precipitated
[the campaign], and we certainly dont do these things just for rankings. Reputation is
something thats born out of actions. The reputation is a reflection of peoples perspective on
the actions that we do take. (Johnson & Johnson)
The corporate campaign is the first global one, will continue indefinitely and will cost an
estimated $20 million to $30 million for the remainder of the year.
It comes at a time when many businesses such as Nestle, Unilever and Procter &
Gamble recognize the value of corporate branding in an increasingly transparent and
accessible world driven by social media. Weve really embraced transparency because we
think weve got a great story to tell, Sneed said. It has made us even more committed to
making sure that were part of the conversation wherever that conversation happens. Clearly,
more of that conversation happens online and in the digital space. We love that things happen
in real time. We get jazzed at being part of that, he said, adding that employees, particularly
the younger ones, are excited by the companys involvement in social media, and have
become ambassadors for the brand.
Sneed also pointed out that J&J has a history of doing corporate campaignsfor example, the
Campaign for Nursings Future, which has been running for 10 years.
As we were thinking about what else we wanted to do, we thought it was important to
reconnect with customers, healthcare professionals, and reconnect them to J&J and really
[help them] understand the values behind J&J. The campaign is about celebrating the people
who do the work of caring for others and in a selfless manner.

The central theme of the new ads, the first from TBWA LA, is lovean expression of what
people do when they care unconditionally for others, Sneed said. That comes out of the
history of J&J.