Editorial
| Date | 12 February 2018 |
| Pages | 1-2 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBM-12-2017-1695 |
| Published date | 12 February 2018 |
| Author | John Balmer,Weifeng Chen |
| Subject Matter | Marketing,Product management,Brand management/equity |
Editorial
Corporate brands: ignored, accepted and
celebrated
Introduction
This special edition celebrate s the formal introduction of the
corporate brand notion in the early /mid-1990s (Balmer,
1995, 1998;Ind, 1998)–whilst also n oting the work of King
(1991) who presaged developments in the territory –and it is
fitting that the Journal of Product and Brand Ma nagement,asa
prominent journal in the field, should give it s imprimatur to
this special edition.
Corporate brands: ignored, accepted and now
celebrated
Since the mid-1990s, we note the exponen tial growth of
interest in corporate brands by scholars an d practitioners
(Balmer, 2010). With its foundations in the UK in t he 1990s,
the concept was initially ignor ed. From 2000 onwards it
began to be accepted and, today, it is cel ebrated. Interestingly,
the predictions that corporate bran ds would grow in
importance have, unquestionably , come to fruition (Balmer,
1995, 1998). The reflections of King (1991),alsopresaged
the aforementioned (even though his principal focu s was on
service brands and the corporate le vel).
As an aside, the lead guest editor can still recall that –until
the early 2000s –most marketing scholars, senior managers
and corporate iden tity scholars (who today , ironically, have
rebranded themsel ves as corporate br and consultants) we re
often unsympathetic, and at best indifferent, towards the
corporate brand no tion. However, as previously stated, p ost-
2000, there was a dramatic volte-face. Notably, corporate
identity consultancies began to reposition themselves as
corporate brand consultancies. Significantly, it was the
publication of seve ral prominent arti cles (some of which
noted the earlier literature of the mid-1990s) that propelled
the area forward with the academy (Balmer,2001a, 2001b;
Hatch and Schultz,2 001, 2003;Balmer and Gray, 2003).
Arguably, it has bee n scholars –rather th an practitioners –
who have provided k ey foundations apr opos the corpora te
brand concept. Their work helped the construct to be widely
accepted, and, as this special edition devoted to corporate
brands attests, the concept is not merely accepted but,
significantly, is now celebrated.
Corporate brands: a critically important
corporate marketing and strategic concern
Within the corporate marketing field, the corporate brand notion
has become an increasingly important and prominent concept.
Today, many of the world’s most valuable and favoured brands
are corporate brands and the management of corporate brands is
recognised to be a strategic imperatives (Balmer,2012a, 2012b).
Unquestionably, they can be an organisat ion’s most valuable
strategic resource and are often a treasured asset. Moreover,
where organisations follow an explicit corporate brand
orientation (Balmer, 2013), the corporate brand may serve as an
organisation’s cornerstone: a centripetal force that guides and
informs an institution’s purposes, activities, culture and ethos
(Balmer, 2012a:Balmeret al.,2017).
The above being noted, confusion an d ambiguity all-too-
often abounds within the corporat e brand canon. Sometimes,
too, there is unfamiliarity –somet imes appearing to be a form
of strategic amnesia –apropos the existence and content of the
foundational literature in marketin g from the mid-1990s to
early 2000’s(Balmer, 2010). Sometimes, too, sc holars and
practitioners apply product/se rvice brand analytical
frameworks, theories and strategi es which, quite often, are ill-
suited to corporate brands. One of t he aims of this special
edition is to further clarify the above.
Special edition articles
The seven articles which constitute this special edition have
undergone a rigorous reviewing process and cover a range of
salient corporate branding themes. These include consumer
identification with corporate brands, managing corporate
and product brand portfolios, corporate brand image co-
creation among business partners, corporate brands
alliances, CSR and corporate brand loyalty, internal
corporate branding and brand-supporting behaviour and
corporate branding and rebranding. Written by scholars
from Australia, Egypt, Finland, India, Slovenia, South
Africa and the USA, this special edition also reflects the
international importance attached to corporate brands.
The first article “Consumers’identification with corpo rate
brands: brand prest ige, anthropomor phism and engagemen t
in social media”(Urs ka and Lovšin, 2018), focusses on the
important issue of corporate brand identification.
Marshalling rese arch insights from c onsumers in Slove nia,
the research revealed that consumer identification with a
corporate was stronger when consumers perceived the
corporate brand to be not only more prestigious but also
humanlike. In addit ion, the study showed h ow positive
consumer corporate brand identification also result ed in
higher consumer corporate brand engagement.
In the second article entitled “Managing across a corporate
and product brand portfolio: Evidence from a large South
African service organisation”(Sevel et al., 2018), the researchers
detail how a large service organisation (with a significant multi-
brand portfolio) managed its corporate brand. Generating rich
research data, this study confirmed key precepts of corporate
brand management which can be found in the formative
literature of the mid-1990s including the importance of the CEO
in corporate brand management, linking organisational values to
the corporate brand, adopting a multi-stakeholder perspective
and according importance to employees in corporate brand
building. As such, this research represents a timely reinforcement
of the saliency of the foundational literature.
The third article “The roles of business partners in corporate
brand image co-creation”(Törmälä, and Saraniemi, 2018),
adopts a B2B corporate brand perspective and focusses on the
roles of business partners in co-creating a corporate brand image.
The research findings detail seven distinct roles which business
partners could have in this regard. A key insight from this study is
Journal of Product Brand Management
27/1 (2018) 1–2
© Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 1061-0421]
[DOI 10.1108/JPBM-12-2017-1695]
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