What Does Your Corporate Brand Stand For?

It’s harder to create a strong identity for an entire company than for a product. This tool kit can help you get there.

by

Stephen A. Greyser

and

Mats Urde

by

Stephen A. Greyser

and

Mats Urde

From the Magazine (January–February 2019) · Long read

Mark Allen Miller

Summary.

While most firms are adept at defining product brands, they’re less sure-footed with their corporate brands. What exactly does a parent company’s name represent, and how is it perceived in the marketplace?

A strong corporate identity provides direction and purpose, boosts the standing of products, aids in recruiting, and shores up a firm’s reputation. To help organizations define theirs, the authors have devised a tool called the corporate brand identity matrix. It guides teams through an examination of the nine components of corporate identity, which include mission, culture, relationships, and core values and promises. Often that exercise reveals broken links between the elements that executives need to align and strengthen.

This article describes how companies have used the matrix to clarify their relationships with daughter brands, retool their identities to support new businesses, revamp their overall image, evaluate targets for acquisition, and more.

Idea in Brief

The Problem

A clear corporate brand identity provides direction and purpose, enhances the standing of products, aids in recruiting and retention, and helps protect a firm’s reputation in times of trouble. But many companies struggle to define their brands.

The Tool

The corporate brand identity matrix can address that problem by guiding executive teams through a structured set of questions that examine aspects of identity related to the organization’s mission, culture, competences, values, and other defining characteristics.

The Application

Companies in a range of industries have used the matrix to clarify the relationship between parent and daughter brands; support business development; evaluate targets for acquisition; and reposition their brand image.

Companies are extremely good at defining their product brands. Customers, employees, and other stakeholders know exactly what an iPhone is and means. But organizations are often less sure-footed when it comes to the corporate brand. What does the parent company’s name really stand for, and how is it perceived and leveraged in the marketplace and within the company itself?

A version of this article appeared in the January–February 2019 issue (pp.80–89) of Harvard Business Review.

Stephen A. Greyser is the Richard P. Chapman Professor Emeritus at Harvard Business School, where his specialties include brand marketing and advertising/corporate communications, and a former editor and editorial board chairman of HBR.
MU

Mats Urde is an associate professor at Lund University School of Economics and Management.

What Does Your Corporate Brand Stand For?

Idea in Brief

The Problem

The Tool

The Application

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