Brand Management: Research, theory and practice

managerial guidelines that can be accumulated from the most prominent research
publications and key non-research literature, supplemented with illustrative cases
of how companies have dealt with the management of brand identity in practice.

Assumptions of the identity approach

The economic approach assumes that attributes related to the Four Ps of marketing
(product, price, placement and promotion) are the main mechanisms behind the
creation and management of brand equity.
The identity approach brings into focus the creation of a unified, visual and
behavioural identity. It is assumed that consumers attribute identity characteristics
to companiesand that people form images of companies based on the total expe-
rience of the company. This places the corporation and its employees at the centre
of brand equity creation. The identity approach hence adds the importance of the
identity of the corporate branding to the theoretical domain of brand management.

The corporate identity perspective

As mentioned in the introduction, the identity concept has a long history from the
field of marketing (both in research and in practice) and many of the concepts used
and studied in marketing have been applied to the use of the identity concept in
brand management. The identity approach is hence multidimensional and draws on
a selection of very diverse academic fields such as graphic design and strategic
management, organizational culture studies and organizational behaviour. Before
seeking a proper understanding of the assumptions underlying the identity
approach it is therefore necessary to know how the identity concept has been played
out in the field of marketing prior to its adaptation to a brand management context.

Box 5.1 The identity concept adopted from marketing

There were two main streams of practical use of and research in the identity

concept in marketing before it became important in a brand management

context. One focused on visual identity while the other focused on behav-

ioural identity. These two concepts and their conceptualization in marketing

will be explained here:

Corporation Brand identity Consumer

Figure 5.1Sources of brand identity. The corporation is pivotal for the creation of brand
equity in the identity approach