IMC:

Corporate Image and

Brand Management

Kenneth E. Clow
OUTLINE
• Corporate Image Roles
– Consumer role
– B2B role
– Corporate role
• Promoting Desired Image
 Components of a
Corporate Image
Tangibles Intangibles
Goods and services Corporate, personnel, and
environmental policies
Retail outlets (sale) Ideals and beliefs of corporate
personnel
Factories (produce) Culture of country and location of
company
Communication media: ads, Media reports
promos, literature, docs…
Name/Logo

Packaging & Labeling

Employees
Corp. Image Role -
consumer’s view
• Assurance of familiar products
(e.g. Coke)
• Assurance of familiar company
(e.g. IBM)
• Reduction of purchase research time
• Psychological reinforcement & social
acceptance
Corp. Image Role-
B2B view
• Reduce feelings of risk
• Reduce search time
• Psychological reinforcement & social
acceptance
Corp. Image Role –
corporation’s view (self-view)
• Extends +ve consumer feelings to
new products
• Enables higher pricing
• Enables increased repeat buying
• Endorses +ve W.O.M.
• Attracts quality employees
• Increased financial viability as
ranked by analysts and corp. raters
Promoting Desired Image
1. Image must accurately portray firm and
coincide with products and services
sold.
2. Easier to re-enforce or rejuvenate than it
is to change well-established
(e.g. New Coke vs. Coke Classic)
3. Difficult to “next to impossible” to
develop new image
(sometimes divorce and/or new company is easier)
4. Recovering from –ve or “bad press”
happens fast (overnight) …
building/rebuilding can take years!
Branding –
discovering why consumers buy a brand
• Most compelling Benefits?
• Emotions elicited by the brand?
• One-word encapsulation?
• Importance to customers?

Get in your teams and write down two

company brand names you feel are the
best in their industry. Explain how the above
four criteria are demonstrated by the brand name
that make it the best.
Packaging
• What do they say to us?
 Packaging
• Same? What do they say differently to us?
 Brand Equity
Brand equity has been also defined as:
• The component of overall preference not explained by objectively
measured attributes; and
• The set of consumer associations & behaviours that permits the brand to
earn greater volume or margins than it could without the brand name.
http://www.ag.state.co.us/mkt/BrandEquityandImageAssess.pdf#search='logo%20images%20brandequity‘
(retrieved Jan/05/2006), Brand Werks Group,
 Brand Equity
“Brand image is everything. It is the sum of all tangible &
intangible traits — the ideas, beliefs, values, prejudices,
interests, features & ancestry that make it unique. A
brand image visually & collectively represents all internal
& external characteristics — the name, symbol,
packaging, literature, signs, vehicles & culture. It's
anything & everything that influences how a brand or a
company is perceived by target constituencies — or even
a single customer.

Brand image may be the best, single marketable investment a

company can make. Creating or revitalizing a positive brand image is
a basic component of every business — and lays a foundation on
which companies can build their future.”
http://www.ag.state.co.us/mkt/BrandEquityandImageAssess.pdf#search='logo%20images%20brandequity‘
(retrieved Jan/05/2006), Brand Werks Group
Brand Extensions and
Flanker Brands
• Brand Extension
– Use established brand name for unrelated
goods and services
(reaching new markets with new product lines)
• Black & Decker: power tools, flashlights, household
appliances (toaster, iron, kettle…)

• Flanker Brand
– Develop a new brand within a related product
category
(increase market mix to reach new target segments)
• Tide & Cheer, Ivory Snow…etc.
Co-Branding
• Ingredient branding
– Intel inside compaq
• Cooperative branding
– Joint venture e.g.: Citbank, Mastercard
and American Airlines points card
• Complementary branding
– Encourage co-consumption of more
than one brand such as Oreo shakes in
Dairy Queen
Private Brands
• Exclusive lines
• Used to be higher priced now lower
priced
• Use to have higher quality perception
now not always
• Retail loyalty up but brand loyalty
down
E.G.: Sears (Kenmore)
 Positioning
“The process of creating a perception in the consumer’s mind regarding
the nature of a company and its products relative to the competition”
(Clow & Blaack, p. 48)

7 ways to achieve effective positioning:

Attribute
Cultural
Competitors
Symbol

POSITIONING
Product Application
Class Use

Product Price-Quality
User Relationship
THANKS!