Corporate Brand

According to Interbrand, a brand that builds stronger long-term physiological relationships with its customers through authenticity, integrity, and transparency is rewarded with sales, overtime values, cash flows and profits (Manfred &

Abigail, 2011). Such a brand is synonymous with a name, symbol, term, sign, design or combination of them with a consumer-focused design that separates these goods or services from those of competitors, consumer information assembly, metaphor, and allegories. It also distinguishes the company’s verbal and visual illustration (Ailawadi & Lehmann, 2003; Bengtsson et al., 2010;

Blombäck & Axelsson, 2007; Kay, 2006; Kotler & Gertner, 2002; Ryans, Griffith,

& White, 2003).

It can be functional (i.e., quality product), reasonable (i.e., selection and searching), positional (i.e., identity), emotional (i.e., satisfaction), psychological and economical with a view to gaining profit, trust, and knowledge. It is an important behavior of the end-users (Alamro & Rowley, 2011; Blombäck &

Axelsson, 2007; Campbell, 2002; Kuhn et al., 2008). Any firms or products might have some satisfied customers’ mental perception and attachment with their unique economic value, which can be defined as a brand. A brand can be clustered as a prominent or weak brand in the marketplace (Aaker, 1996; Datzira Masip & Poluzzi, 2014; Keller, 2003; Kuhn et al., 2008). There are some classifications of the brand such as locus (i.e., mental or physical), nature (i.e., metaphoric and literal), functional (i.e., entity or process) and valence (i.e., negative or positive) (Stern, 2006). Traditionally, in the international business environment, there are two types of brands: corporate and product brand (An, Gao, & Wang, 2006; John & Gray, 2003).

The corporate brand emerged in the 1990s. It consists of the firm’s internal or external strategy at the local, global and glocal level. It creates the core value through the company’s holistic nature and future direction and serves the product brand and brand leverage. It maintains the wider entities of the heritage, credibility, reputation, group of companies, subsidiaries, and corporations. It also manages the corporate networks (Aaker, 2004; Brexendorf & Kernstock, 2007; Capron & Hulland, 1999; John & Gray, 2003; John, Harris, & de Chernatony, 2001; Urde, 2003; Urde et al., 2013). The corporate brand encapsulates the company’s mission, goals, culture, and values, expectations of shareholders, communities, potential employees, public, and business partners.

It also influences the customer’s recognition of the original manufacturer, customer retention and purchasing behavior.

The corporate brand is beyond the product brand (Backhaus, Steiner, & Lügger, 2011; Basu, 2006; Muzellec & Lambkin, 2009; Yin-Ying, Yung-Hsin, Shuo-Chang, & Long-Tai, 2010). Customarily, the corporate and product brand are separate entities, although both maintain the same objectives of the company (Chernatony, 2002; Knox & Bickerton, 2003).

There are also some differences between the corporate identity and corporate brand. The corporate brand differentiates and serves the product and services with a unique value-added identity (Datzira Masip & Poluzzi, 2014). The Interbrand assessment showed that Coca Cola’s goodwill accounted for about USD 84 billion of its total worth of USD 142 billion, which was a corporate brand.

The corporate brand’s value is about 60 to 70 percent of the book value or corporate valuation, depending on the market assessment (Halliburton & Bach, 2012; John & Gray, 2003; Vu & Moisescu, 2013). The corporate brand is a valuable intangible resource that managers always look for (Artikis, Kapareliotis,

& Panopoulos, 2010; Bahadir et al., 2008; Capron & Hulland, 1999; Homburg, Klarmann, & Schmitt, 2010; Kristandl & Bontis, 2007). Its artifacts such as the name and symbols guarantee the quality, commercial trade-off and brand identities. In the international marketing literature, the corporate brand is a market-based resource and the principal source of competitive advantage that has rarity, inimitability and less substitutability (Bahadir et al., 2008; Blombäck

& Ramírez䇲Pasillas, 2012; Capron & Hulland, 1999; Johne, 2003; Kotler &

Gertner, 2002). For example, Blombäck and Axelsson (2007) found that the corporate brand image is more influential in attracting the customers’ trust, interest, delivery time and competencies. Also, the website, previous consumers and plant orderliness can develop the corporate brand. The study was focused on the selection process of three Swedish subcontractors in the industrial market, However, to build the corporate brand, the firm should adopt different branding strategies in the CBM&A to maintain the stakeholders’ promises because the brand is more than just a name and logo (Johne, 2003). In the CBM&A, the acquirer should preserve its corporate brand and the target’s equity to achieve cost and revenue synergies (Kumar & Hansted Blomqvist, 2004). The acquirer can gain a synergistic competitive advantage from the deployment of resources and capabilities, such as corporate culture, strategic vision, image, systems, routines, the target’s characteristics and marketing capacity (Aaker, 2004; An et al., 2006; Bahadir et al., 2008; Basu, 2006; Makadok, 2001). In the CBM&A, the corporate brand secures profitability, retaining the relationships with the customers and the interested parties (Capron & Hulland, 1999).

In an empirical investigation, Shahri (2011) found that the stakeholder’s confidence, strategic position, and financial value are related to the effectiveness of corporate branding. The respondents were 221 top, middle and functional level managers from 63 Iranian firms in the food, cosmetic and detergent industries.

Also, Michell et al. (2001) proposed that corporate branding is influential for competitive advantage, successful performance and industrial brand, which enhance market power through intangible resources. The study sample size was 70 CEOs in the engineering, chemical, plastics, electronics, and paper industries in the UK.

Homburg, Klarmann, & Schmitt. (2010) revealed that brand awareness (i.e., top of mind, recognition, brand knowledge and recall) positively influences market performance (i.e., new customer acquisition, market share achievement of the desired market growth, market share and customer loyalty). The relationship is strengthened by the market characteristics (i.e., the high technological turbulence and product homogeneity) and organizational buyers (i.e., the buyer time pressure and buying center homogeneity). The brand name and logo are also persuasive for brand awareness. The study was based on 310 managers from the machine-building, automotive, chemical and electronics’ industry in Germany.

The above branding literature and empirical studies show that corporate brand is influential for synergistic competitive advantage and the overall market and financial performance in the CBM&A, which depends on appropriate corporate branding while the CBA strategy leverages the corporate branding in the target market. However, in the CBM&A, the conceptual development of corporate brand architecture needs to be developed based on the resource perspective, which is described below.