The roles of business partners in corporate brand image co-creation
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBM-01-2016-1089 |
| Pages | 29-40 |
| Published date | 12 February 2018 |
| Date | 12 February 2018 |
| Author | Minna Törmälä,Saila Saraniemi |
| Subject Matter | Marketing,Product management,Brand management/equity |
The roles of business partners in corporate
brand image co-creation
Minna Törmälä and Saila Saraniemi
Oulu Business School, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland
Abstract
Purpose –This study aims to examine the roles of business partners in co-creating a corporate brand image.
Design/methodology/approach –The study adopts different business partners’perspectives to analyse corporate brand co-creative actions
through a case study within a business-to-business company (B2B SME) context. Interviews with the case company’s manage r and key business
partners were used as the primary source of empirical data.
Findings –The study suggests a typology of seven roles which business partners adopt in corporate bra nd image co-creation: co-innovator, co-
marketer, brand specialist, knowledge provider, referee, intermediary and advocate. The study also highlights the management of co-creative
relationships in corporate brand image co-creation in the context of business partners.
Practical implications –This study increases the understanding of the complexities and dynamics related to corporate brand image construction
and helps managers size the potential of business partner relationships in corporate branding and manage co-creative brand partner rel ationships.
Originality/value –The roles are examined by applying a conceptual framework built by combining branding research in a novel way with the role
theory. The study also provides a multi-stakeholder perspective to brand co-creation.
Keywords Corporate image, Brand co-creation, Corporate branding
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
A strong corporate brandis a valuable intangible asset, because
it symbolises quality, trustworthiness and distinctiveness.
Organisations that are weak in branding terms, may lack clear
corporate brand promise (Balmer, 2010). Corporate brand
image refers to how a company is perceived by customers and
other stakeholders (Ballantyne and Aitken, 2007). A good
corporate brand image influences how people perceive the
quality of the company’s products and services and helps to
achieve customer preference and a sustained superiorfinancial
performance (Roberts and Dowling, 2002). While brand
identity has been described as the internal perception of the
company’s central qualities and strengths (Kapferer, 2008)
defined by brand managers (Rode and Vallaster, 2005),
corporate brand image ultimately resides in the minds of the
brand’s audience and is not under the company’s full control
(Hatch and Schultz,2003).
Corporate brandi ng shares the same obj ective as product
branding in creating differentiation and preference. However,
while a product brand represents a single product or service, a
corporate brand represents an entire organisation with a more
strategic and lon ger-term perspect ive (Balmer, 2001b;
Balmer and Gray, 2003). Whereas, a product brand mainly
targets customers, a corporate brand needs to create
relationships with different stakeholders and is characterised
by a multi-stakehol der orientation (Balmer , 1995). Managing
it is therefore mor e complicated (Knox and Bickerton, 2003).
Recent branding research further emphasises that
stakeholders are integral to the corporate branding process
rather than external targets (see Leitch and Richardson,
2003;Gregory, 2007). The corporate brand is increasingly
considered to be co-created through dynamic, interactive
social processes in multi-stakeholder networks or service
ecosystems rather than as a resource generated within a
company (Merz et al., 2009;Hatch and Schultz, 2010).
Central to this current view is the proposition that all
stakeholders are perceived as potentially having an active
role in branding (Leitch and Richardson, 2003), and a
company’s ability to utilise the resources (e.g. knowledge
and skills) of its stakeholders in branding is decisive in terms
of the brand’ssuccess(Merz et al., 2009).
Although the literature increasingly acknowledges external
stakeholders as active co-creators,rather than passive targets in
corporate branding (Hatch and Schultz, 2010), insight is still
lacking into how (Payne et al., 2009)andwhy (Gyrd-Jones and
Kornum, 2012) a brand image is co-created, especially at the
corporate level (Balmer, 2010;Hatch and Schultz, 2010), as
well as what roles external stakeholders play in the co-creation
process (Vallaster and Lindgreen, 2011). Furthermore, the
existing literature on brand co-creation is mainly conceptual
(Boyle, 2007;Helm and Jones, 2010) or focuses on either the
company’s or the customer’s perspective alone (Mühlbacher
and Hemetsberger, 2008). Studies that consider the broader
stakeholder ecosystem and multi-stakeholder perspective in
corporate brand co-creation do exist (Mäläskä et al.,2011;
Gyrd-Jones and Kornum, 2012;Vallaster and von Wallpach,
2013). However, the existing research is lacking and calls for
empirical work that genuinely involves the perspectives of
multiple different actorsin co-creation (Frow et al.,2015). The
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on
Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/1061-0421.htm
Journal of Product & Brand Management
27/1 (2018) 29–40
© Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 1061-0421]
[DOI 10.1108/JPBM-01-2016-1089]
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