3 - Corporate Branding (continued)

Example of monolithic identity:

Examples of co-branding :

Text:

What is corporate branding?

Corporate branding refers to a company applying its name to a product. The product and the
company name become the brand name. The company can advertise several of its products
under a single brand name in a practice referred to as family branding or umbrella branding.
By using corporate branding with a successfully marketed product, a company can familiarize
consumers with its products and may create brand loyalty. If the public likes one product from this
company, then they may seek out the brand name when buying other products. Corporate
branding is usually only successful if the company is well known and sells reputable products
with a positive image. One of the disadvantages of corporate branding is that the company can
become identified with only one type of product.
To consumers, corporate branding represents a level of quality that they have come to expect
from the company. They will expect every product with the same brand name to have the same
level of quality that they are familiar with. The company can increase sales by comparing one of
their more popular products with a similar product by another company, showing sales figures to
back up their promise. The value of the brand is determined by the profits the products have
made. If profits are high, then the manufacturer is able to charge more for their product.
When applying corporate branding to a product or products, companies need to follow a few
guidelines. A corporate brand should be easy to recognize and attract attention. It should also be
legally protectable and suggest the company or product image.
Ideally, the brand should be easy to pronounce and easy to remember. A premier brand product
typically costs more to purchase than an economy brand. Consumers are paying for the name
and the quality of product that name guarantees.
There are a few extensions to corporate branding. One brand name may be used for a number of
products in family branding, or all the products may be given different brand names in a practice
called individual branding. When large retailers buy goods in bulk and then put their own brand
name on them, this is called store branding, label branding, or private branding. Co-branding is
when two or more manufactures combine to sell their products. When a company sells the right
to use their brand name to another company for use in another location or for non-competitive
purposes, this is called brand licensing.
Corporate branding has the ability to make a product very successful. If the brand name has a
track record of a guarantee of quality, then there are huge amounts of money to be made by
using the name. However, just one shoddy product under the brand name may cause bad word
of mouth, affecting sales of all the other products under the same name and causing irreversible
damage to the company.

Procter and Gamble Corporate branding vs multi-branding

Procter and Gamble (P&G) is the American, fast-moving consumer goods company behind many
brands you are likely to have lying around your house: Ariel, Bounty, Pringles and Gillette just
to name a few. These brands are probably familiar to you. Hence, their strategy to date of
promoting multiple brands to target different market segments has been highly effective.
However, this has until now been at that expense of promoting their corporate brand. Thus, P&G
have reviewed their promotional mix; now, the company plans to promote their corporations
environmental credentials through T.V. advertising in the U.K. Their belief is that if consumers
perceive P&G to be a green company, then they will actively seek out their brands. This
coincides with the launch of their new environmental sustainability vision.
Simply, P&G are moving away from a mutli-brand strategy to a corporate branding strategy. But
surely there are advantages and drawbacks of each approach?

Firstly, what has made P&G so successful? As mentioned before, effective multi-branding is the
answer. This allows P&G to tailor different features that appeal to different consumers note in
the picture above: they manufacture both Head & Shoulders and Pantene shampoo. As a result
of this, the company can take a differentiated approach to marketing. Thus, long-term
relationships are developed with customers by closely satisfying their wants and needs with
products that have a competitive advantage over their competitors. Although P&G have
overcome the most common drawback of using a multi-brand strategy that each brand may
only obtain a small market share they do suffer from a lack of corporate publicity.
Unlike P&G, Unilever and Reckitt Beckinser, their major competitors, have already started to
promote their corporate brand as opposed to their products. Unilever distinctively display their
logo on their advertisements; while Reckitt Beckinser has started to raise their corporate publicity
among students to highlight the graduate job opportunities they offer. P&G are playing catch-up
with their micro-environment.
This means that above-the-line promotion is needed, in the form of advertisements, to quickly
raise their corporate profile. This would account for the creative advertising, below, which has
already been aired in the U.S.

Video 8:
Take note of the ending: although they highlight the relevant product range to Mothers a key
market segment the main emphasis is on the company, P&G. This is an indication of how they

aim to undertake corporate branding in the U.K sponsorship of the 2012 Olympics that
emphasizes their environmental sustainability and healthy living ethos. Thus, like how Mothers in
the U.S. may seek out products from various P&G product lines, health and environmental
concerned consumers in the U.K. will theoretically look out for P&G products.
Moreover, this corporate branding strategy will provide even more long-term benefits for P&G
that may not even be a part of their marketing objectives. Namely, as consumers trust and
recognize P&G, the more willing they may become to try new brands they launch. For instance,
Heinzs traditional labeling has become synonymous with high-quality food products. This
develops deeper consumer relationships. If P&G can achieve a similar brand positioning in the
minds of their consumers then product development becomes less risky and, therefore,
innovation becomes more effective.
However, in order for corporate branding to be a success, the company must have a good
reputation a slightly obvious observation I know. But still, a poor reputation is a major
weakness. As such, Kraft Foods unlike others mentioned so far are still emphasizing their
product brands other their corporate identity following the consumer backlash over their unethical
behavior during the takeover of Cadbury Chocolate.
Ultimately, I believe a corporate branding strategy will work for P&G albeit it being implemented
a little late. However, I do not feel that it will be sufficient to promote their apparent environmental
considerations; environmental impact varies so much on a product-to-product basis. Hence, each
one of their products has different degrees of sustainability it is the brand of the product that will
prevail over the brand of the company on ethical issues. But, more importantly, corporate
branding is likely to be a huge success for the P&G in terms of making consumers more
receptive to the high-quality innovation that the firm has yet to receive credit for.

Benefits Of The Corporate Brand

There are several benefits from employing a corporate branding strategy which a corporation can exploit.
First of all, a strong brand including a corporate brand is no less or more than the face of the business
strategy hence portraying what the corporation aims at doing and what it wants to be known for in the
market place. The corporate brand is the overall umbrella for the corporations' activities and encapsulates
its vision, values, personality, positioning and image among many other dimensions. Think of global
banker HSBC which has successfully implemented a stringent corporate branding strategy. They employ
the same common expression throughout the globe with a simple advertising strategy based on the
slogan "The world's local bank". This creative platform enables the corporation to bridge between many
cultural differences, and to portray many faces of the same strategy.
A corporate branding strategy creates simplicity as it always will stand on top of the brand portfolio as the
ultimate identifier of the corporation. P&G has notoriously been known for a multi-brand strategy (partial
brand portfolio pictured above) and yet again, the corporate brand P&G is still what encapsulates all
activities by the company. Depending on the business strategy and the potential need for more than a
one-brand architecture in the case of P&G, which markets many different brands under their umbrella, a
corporate brand can very often assist the corporation and the management to focus in on the core vision
and values. Once this overall platform has been established and implemented, it serves as a great
stepping stone for revisiting any other brands in the corporations' portfolio and to have a new approach
and look at their various brand identities. This ultimately will lead to the final brand architecture of the
corporation and set the strategy for how branding and brands will play an important role to achieve the
corporate objectives.
When the corporation decides to implement a corporate branding strategy, some cost efficiencies can
often be achieved as opposed to a large multi-brand architecture where the corporate brand plays a
smaller or insignificant role. Today, there is a general requirement for high level of investments to maintain
efficient production capabilities and scale in many industries (for example technology and
pharmaceutical), and to stay competitive in R&D for new products and services. Product life cycles are
getting shorter and shorter for many industries and products, and corporations have to seek solutions to
recover their development and marketing costs within the shorter life cycles. These factors combined are
forcing corporations to evaluate their cost structure, and a corporate branding strategy can help the
management achieve their goals by bridging across product categories and services as opposed to a
multi-brand strategy.
There are obvious cost efficiencies in terms of reduced marketing and advertising spending as the
corporate brand replaces budgets for individual product marketing efforts. Even a combined corporate and
product branding strategy can often enable management to reduce costs and exploit synergies from a
new and more focused brand architecture. The Apple brand has established a very strong position of
being a design-driven and innovative company offering many types of products and services. Their
corporate brand encapsulates the body and soul of the company, and the main messages from the
company uses the corporate Apple brand. Various sub-brands then help to identify the individual product
lines.
The basic guideline is based on revenue contribution of the various brands. If profit contribution can be
enhanced by reducing the number of brands, the portfolio is too big. Reversely, if the overall profit
contribution can be enhanced by adding new brands, the portfolio is too small. Hence an individual wish
for strong corporate branding must be evaluated carefully and all factors taken into consideration.
In the last couple of years, corporate brands have become very strong drivers of financial value for
corporations. Corporate brands by themselves have become valuable assets on the company balance
sheet with market values very often much beyond book value.
The founder of SONY, Akio Morita, once said: "I have always believed that the company name is the life
of an enterprise. It carries responsibility and guarantees the quality of the product". Therefore, a strong
and well-balanced corporate brand orchestrated throughout the corporation by a passionate CEO and his
team can lead to very successful and sustainable financial results.

4 - Issue Management
Overview

How issues evolve

How issues affect organizations
How best to respond to issues through different communication strategies

Defining issues
An issue:
A public concern about the organizations decision and operations
An unsettled matter which is ready for a decision
The development of an issue into a crisis

Defining issues
After an issue has become active, it may increase the pressure on an organization
to do something about it.
A crisis: an issue that requires decisive and immediate action from the organization
Managing issues
Process of managing issues consists of:
environmental scanning
issue identification and analysis
issue-specific response strategies
evaluation
Environmental Scanning
Two analytical tools
1 DESTEP analysis: broad analysis of various factors expected to have an impact upon the
organization and its operations.
Demographic,
Economic,
Social,
Technological,
Ecological and
Political

2 - SWOT analysis: an analysis of an organization:

Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats
Issue identification and analysis
Determine the present intensity of the issue in the public domain by considering:
How likely it is to trigger government action or impact on public opinion
The likelihood of the issue continuing
The ability of the organization to influence its resolution
The key stakeholder groups and publics that are involved with the issue
The position-importance matrix
-5 Problematic
Oppose
Position on

Antagonistic

0 Low Priority
Issue
Support

Supporter

+5
Importance to the organization

Issue identification and analysis

Four categories of stakeholders and publics:
Problematic stakeholders/publics: stakeholders or publics who are likely to oppose or be hostile
to the organizations course of action, but are relatively unimportant to the organization.
Antagonistic stakeholders/publics: those stakeholders or publics who are likely to oppose or be
hostile to the organizations course of action and hold power or influence over the organization.
Low priority stakeholders/publics: those stakeholders or publics who are likely to support the
organizations course of action but are relatively unimportant to the organization in terms of their
power or influence.
Supporter stakeholders/publics: those stakeholders or publics who are likely to support the
organizations course of action, and are important to the organization in terms of their power or
influence.
The life-cycle of an issue

Stage 1: Potential issueThis stage consists of a defined phenomenon that has the potential to
become an issue of concern
Stage 2: Emerging issueDuring this stage, an issues level of intensity increase gradually. The
increase is mainly because of the stakeholders advancing the issue. They try to legitimize the
issue and gain greater support from expanded circle of influencers to strengthen their position
and public acceptance for the issue.
Media coverage: It overlaps a portion of the emerging stage and encompasses the current and
crisis stages. Before an issue receives regular media coverage, stakeholders persistently seek
to attract the media's attention to its cause.
Stage 3: Current issueThe issue at this stage has matured, displaying its full potential impact
upon the organization. At this point the public, key influencers, and others recognize the
importance of the issue and place pressure on governmental bodies and agencies to introduce
formal constraints to deter or change the behavior of the organization or industry.
Stage 4: Crisis issue At this stage, the organization's options have decreased; however, it must
set a policy in response to the crisis.
Unconditional acceptance: Through formal constraints, the issue is unconditionally imposed upon
the organization or industry. Basically, it has no other alternatives but to accept the issue by
deterring or changing its behavior.
Stage 5: Dormant issueWhen an issue follows the full course of its life, it eventually reaches a
high level of intensity to force the organization to accept it unconditionally. The issue at this point
becomes a norm within the organization and in society.

Issue-specific response strategies

Buffering strategy: an attempt to stonewall the issue and delay its development

Bridging strategy: involves organizations being open to change and recognizing the
issue and its inevitability

Advocacy strategy: an attempt to try to change stakeholder expectations and public

opinions on an issue through issue campaigns and lobbying

Choice of strategy often depends on:

the intensity of the issue
the importance of an issue to the organizations stakeholder groups
the values and beliefs of managers in an organization
Evaluation

Continuous evaluation - know the stage of the issue is and whether there is still an
opportunity to influence public debate on the issue in question.
Evaluate the success of the chosen strategy.