Hatch and Shultz, (2000) define corporate brand as sign, symbol, name or the combination of all these items to differentiate an organization from another. A corporate branding helps the corporation and the management to create a unique position in the marketing place of an organization and its brands towards competitors. The organization engages goods or services will be a part of the organization identity and the organization will be considered as a brand.
Dealers must use marketing to realize several goals at the same time. First, they want to promote new products to consumers so consumers know these products are available through the organization. Second, they need to advertise worth so consumers believe they are getting their money’s value. But the main objective of marketing is to generate a corporate branding, a solid uniqueness that has the facility to twig in the minds of users regardless of the product or situation.
Corporate branding is a specific style of naming, which seeks to link the name of the firm with the overall advertising efforts in the attention of the user. When Corporate Branding is effective, and the consumers hear or see the name of the organization, they will associate it with an exclusive value and confident experience. No matter what the business offers, the corporate brand is always an impact.
When done effectively, corporate branding makes marketing much easier for organizations. For example, organization that has a solid corporate brand can simply announce its name on sponsored products and that name will directly induce an affirmative reaction in the consumer, without a list of product descriptions or a brochure stating the latest service the business has. Eventually, organizations can charge higher prices just because they are the ones labeling a product.
A strong brand is when building and maintaining perceptions in the mind of customers for example: “Microsoft, Disney, CNN,” the most famous firms in the world is what consumers will expect.
Within marketing, Corporate Branding can increase the organization’s visibility, recognition and reputation in ways not fully appreciated by product-brand thinking. The Corporate Brand contributes not only to customer-based images, but to the images formed and held by all the organization’s stakeholders.
An organization can define its brand that is the visual combination to ensure that all entities are working together to obtain the image, but the image and reputation is what pubic see and it goes beyond organization’s control.
Branding is basically what appeals to consumers, and is the way a firm’s products and services are proposed to audiences; reputation however, is the public awareness of the firm’s corporate activities which incorporates community relations and corporate social responsibility. It is what the organization is doing to look after its triple bottom line – the people, the profit and the planet.
Figure I: Framework for Corporate Branding
Source: (The ICFAI Journal of Brand Management Vol-V, No 1, pp.24)