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Corporate marketing: insights and integration drawn from corporate branding, corporate identity, corporate communication and visual identification
Edited by John M.T. Balmer, Avinandan Mukherjee, Stephen A. Greyser and Per Jenster
Introduction
Companies adopting new brand names are frequently reported in the business press ([34] Girard, 2003; [52] Lamont, 2003; [66] Wiggins, 2003). This phenomenon, sometimes referred to as corporate rebranding ([37] Haig, 2003), has affected corporations as diverse as Andersen Consulting, Philip Morris Corp., Guinness UDV and Bell Atlantic, to name a few well-known examples.
This practice carries a high level of reputation risk as well as being a very costly exercise ([14] Clavin, 1999; [22] Dunham, 2002). The project to rebrand the UK's Royal Mail as Consignia is a case in point. In addition to provoking a public outcry, it cost £2.5 million to become Consignia plus an additional £1 million to change the name back to Royal Mail - the brand that was cherished by the British public ([37] Haig, 2003; [29] Europe Intelligence Wire , 2004). It seems imperative, therefore, that such decisions be informed by strong theory and research. A comprehensive literature search indicates, however, that most of the writing on this topic so far is journalistic in nature with almost nothing appearing in the academic journals. This is a deficit which this paper seeks to begin to address.
The numerous cases of corporate rebranding present an interesting conceptual challenge for the marketing discipline. Revitalising and repositioning a brand through gradual, incremental modification of the brand proposition and marketing aesthetics can be considered a natural and necessary part of the task of brand management in response to changing market conditions ([1] Aaker, 1991; [46] Kapferer, 1998). Changing a brand's name, however, suggests the loss of all the values that the old name signifies which challenges traditional marketing wisdom with regards to brand equity. A fundamental premise underpinning marketing education and practice is that strong brands are built through many years of sustained investment in a brand name which, if well judged, will yield a loyal consumer franchise, higher margins and a continuing stream of income for the brand owner ([2] Aaker, 1996; [46] Kapferer, 1998; [48] Keller, 2002). Changing the brand name potentially nullifies those years of effort and can seriously damage...