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The purpose of this paper is to study practices associated with corporate brand alignment enacted by marketing managers in an emerging business to business market.

The “Marketing-as-practice” perspective is used to examine brand alignment-related practices. A five months fieldwork was undertaken wherein primary data were collected using in-depth interviews of 30 managers representing steel, mining, energy, engineering consulting and Information Technology/Information Technology-Enabled Services' sectors along with observational data from event sites and industry meets. Secondary data stemmed from marketing plans and events' rosters. Data were analysed adopting the practice turn.

The constitution of three practices concerning brand alignment is unearthed: (1) practice of identifying key stakeholders, (2) practice of narrativization of brand promises and (3) practice of engaging key stakeholders.

This study highlights the dynamic nature of corporate brand alignment requiring a continuous gap analysis to verify coherency between internal and external brand elements. It also highlights the elicited relation between alignment, authenticity and advocacy. Suggestions for further research are provided.

This study elucidates managers' role as intrapreneurs in the process of alignment and provides a possible solution to the new marketing myopia which impairs stakeholder management.

This research identifies that brand alignment is not an abstract concept but a set of practices that help convert the symbolic capital held in brands into cultural and social capital.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

This research paper concentrates on how corporate brand alignment is achieved through the management of internal and external stakeholders. A strategic approach to corporate brand development involves executing three defined components: identifying key stakeholders, narrativization of brand promises, and engaging key stakeholders. Based on the interconnection of brand authenticity, internal brand alignment, external brand alignment, and brand advocacy, the results advocate the need for brand authenticity to achieve brand alignment through creating and building enthusiasm among brand advocates.

The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

The purpose of the study is to inquire into and to provide an integrated framework of academics’ and practitioners’ conversations on corporate brand alignment.

A systematic literature review (with no time restrictions) was used to identify relevant journal publications from the years 2000 to 2013. Based on the retrieved articles, the Hegelian dialectic triad of “thesis, antithesis and synthesis” was used to inquire into conventional thinking on corporate brand management (i.e. through corporate brand alignment).

The final sample of 59 articles brought to light a theory of corporate brand alignment, its recent contradictions and critiques and scholars’ attempts to unify them into an integrated framework. Three main perspectives emerged, suggesting that corporate brand could be managed through aligned (i.e. thesis), separated (i.e. antithesis) or mixed approaches (i.e. synthesis).

This research considers only English peer-reviewed journal articles retrieved from the EBSCO and WOS databases.

This work proposes a contingency approach to corporate brand management, suggesting that there is no single best way of managing a corporate brand: aligned, separated and mixed approaches can be equally successful. Despite the choice of model (which arises from the analysis of the corporate brand meanings, stakeholders and contexts), three transversal corporate brand management imperatives emerged: the delivery of the corporate brand promise, the co-construction of corporate brand meanings and the recognition of the dynamic nature of corporate brands.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a research approach to investigate brand alignment by exploiting textual data from online brand communities in the coffee industry. Specifically, consumer brand associations from user-generated content (UGC) and company brand associations from firm-generated content (FGC) are explored to measure the alignment between brand identity and brand image. The selected context of research is the beverage industry wherein companies are called on to develop appropriate digital websites and brand communication strategies to enhance the consumers' brand experience.

The authors introduce a research approach that integrates netnography with text mining analysis. Since brand associations were the basis of the study’s analysis, the authors focused on text mining procedures, providing data (co-occurrences) corresponding to brand associations that consumers perceive and that the company communicates. Data were used to develop the measurements of brand alignment.

The main findings of this research highlight the importance for both scholars and practitioners of determining brand alignment of beverage products in online communities. Knowing the alignment between the way a company communicates its brand identity and how this is perceived by consumers allows for effectively reviewing brand communication.

Although the combined analysis of the alignment between brand image and brand identification has received attention in marketing literature, most scholars have neglected how to measure brand alignment. This is a need for many marketing managers in the coffee industry who are now moving in digital environments where the role of consumers is not that of receivers of brand communication but rather that of cocreators of brand value.

Maximising return on naming rights sponsorships is important for social marketing campaigns with limited funds. Naming rights allow the sponsor’s brand to be aligned with the event name in text and visual promotional materials. For visual displays, either the brand logo or the brand name in words can be aligned with the event name. As the Act–Belong–Commit mental health promotion campaign’s logo encapsulates the brand name, a study was conducted to assess the relative impact on recall of “Act–Belong–Commit” as part of a sponsored event name, when the logo was aligned with the event name versus when the brand name in only words was aligned with the event name.

An intercept survey was conducted with n = 112 adult university students. Participants were presented with one of the above two branding alignments for the sponsored event. The image was removed from view, a distracter question asked and participants were asked to recall the name of the event.

Recall of the Act–Belong–Commit brand in full as part of the name of the event was significantly and substantially greater for participants exposed to the words only alignment versus the logo alignment: 52 vs 7 per cent (p < 0.000).

Given these findings, the campaign has adopted the policy of using the words Act–Belong–Commit alongside the event name rather than the logo in future naming rights sponsorships.

It is recommended that other social marketing brands with similar brand/logo designs undertake research to ensure optimal return on naming rights sponsorships.

The chapter proposes to investigate online reputation of hospitality brands and its measurements. Brand reputation is generally defined as an overall appraisal of a company by its stakeholders, which is the result of the company's past actions and predictions about the company's future (Ferguson, Deephouse, & Ferguson, 2000). Being viewed as the opinion shared among a group of stakeholders (Dowling, 2008), it plays an important role in the tourism industry. With the progress of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs), reviews and user-generated contents of destinations and of hospitality companies together with the related emerging brand reputation can influence consumers' behaviors and choices. Brand reputation analysis could be more useful in the hospitality brand management when integrated with brand image and brand identity analysis, mainly because in tourism businesses and destinations, brands are typically affected by an inherent fragility determined by the service nature of products (Casarin, 1996). According to Biel (1991), the meanings that consumers assign to a brand are synthesized into brand associations formed by the components perceived to underlie the brand's image. As well as brand reputation, strong, positive and unique associations reinforce a brand and increase its equity that requires significant internal brand identity efforts, which should create a corresponding brand image through integration in overall marketing programmes (Keller, 2003). It makes sense to develop an analytical research approach that compares online brand reputation (OBR) with brand association matching as a measure of the alignment between brand identity and brand image in hospitality companies. This comparative analysis emerging from brand reputation, brand image and brand identity analysis can reveal divergent situations (i.e., high brand reputation and low brand association matching) and orient brand managers in reviewing online brand communication. Brand reputation and brand image analysis will be contextualized in an online community as a social setting that is considered to be a new type of market (Muniz & O'Guinn, 2001). We focus on hospitality online communities populated by consumers and other actors such as influencers and bloggers: their brand perception could be separately compared with brand identity that we will extract from company communications including presentational information and brand-related press releases found on websites, nonfinancial narrative from annual reports, and interviews with managers published in mainstream media sources. In our analysis we will focalize on a cluster of luxury hospitality companies integrating a netnographic and text-mining techniques. We will use both the techniques in order to (1) extract and study brand associations in terms of brand reputation, brand image, and brand identity; (2) develop indicators of brand reputation and brand association matching; and (3) discuss their utility in the management of the hospitality company brands.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the use of alignment practices between manufacturers and retailers; it focuses on the Italian fashion industry.

A qualitative approach is adopted (case studies of fashion retailers in Italy), involving both documentary analysis and structured interviews with retail and store managers, with the aim of assessing the level of channel alignment between manufacturer and retailer.

The paper gives an overview of the extent to which fashion retailers in Italy pursue channel alignment; it suggests a relationship between the degree of alignment and two relevant drivers (channel type and lifecycle phase).

A descriptive analysis with exploratory purpose is provided. The overall research plan includes expanding the analysis and final testing through quantitative methods.

The paper analyses the role of retail channel alignment in the fashion industry from an operational point of view; helps understanding the need for alignment with respect to channel type and lifecycle phase.

Business organizations are evermore expected to behave conscientiously, but a lack of clarity remains regarding this strategy for business-to-business (B2B) brands. This paper aims to develop and validate a B2B brand conscientiousness model that identifies what factors are driving this approach.

The research model is validated through a three-stage study that collects insights from high-level executives, mid-level managers and employees in B2B firms. Whereas the first two exploratory stages follow a qualitative approach to identify what factors motivate B2B firms to be conscientious and develop a model, the third stage empirically tests the proposed model through structural equation modeling.

The results suggest that brand conscientiousness is viewed as an important strategy by B2B stakeholders. Whereas perceived risk discourages, external and internal stakeholder expectations and a firm’s financial commitment to a cause encourage, brands to pursue a conscientious approach. Furthermore, a B2B conscientious strategy must be perceived as authentic. Long-term commitment to the cause, strategic alignment of brand values with the cause and a congruent delivery of the brand’s promise are the drivers of this perceived authenticity.

This paper contributes to the emerging knowledge on B2B conscientious brands by confirming the importance of this approach in a B2B context, identifying the factors that B2B stakeholders – executives, managers and employees – believe are driving it and highlighting the importance and identifying the factors that drive its perceived authenticity.

There are explicit calls for research devoted to how political actors present their brand to the electorate and how this is interpreted. Responding to this, the purpose of this paper is to build an understanding of how political brand messages and values are received and aligned with voter expectations, which in turn shapes the consistency of a political brand.

Using an interpretivist perspective, this two-stage approach first focuses on semi-structured interviews with internal stakeholders of the UK Conservative Party and second uses focus group discussions with external stakeholders (voters) of age 18-24 years. Data was collected between 1 December 2014 and 6 May 2015.

The findings suggest that the UK Conservative brand had recovered from the “nasty party” reputation. Further, the Conservative brand was perceived as credible, trustworthy and responsible, with positive associations of “economic competence”. However, while the nasty party imagery has declined, the UK Conservative brand continues to face challenges particularly in terms of longstanding negative associations perceived by both internal and external markets.

It must be acknowledged that all research methods have their own limitations, and acknowledging these will strengthen the ability to draw conclusions. In this study, for example, due to time constraints during the election campaign period, 7 participants supported stage one of the study and 25 participants supported stage two of the study. However, participants from stage one of the study represented all three elements of the UK Conservative Party (Parliamentary, Professional and Voluntary). In addition, the elite interviews were longer in duration and this provided a greater opportunity to capture detailed stories of their life experiences and how this affected their brand relationship. Similarly, participants for stage two focussed on young voters of age 18-24 years, a segment actively targeted by the UK Conservative Party.

The brand alignment framework can help practitioners illuminate components of the political brand and how it is interpreted by the electorate. The increasing polarisation in politics has made this a vital area for study, as we see need to understand if, how or why citizens are persuaded by a more polarised brand message. There are also social media issues for the political brand which can distort the carefully constructed brand. There are opportunities to evaluate and operationalize this framework in other political contexts.

The brand alignment model extends current branding theory first by building on an understanding of the complexities of creating brand meaning, second, by operationalizing differences between the brand and how it is interpreted by the electorate, finally, by identifying if internal divisions within the political party pose a threat to the consistency of the brand.

This article aims to advance comprehension of corporate brands via the adoption of identity‐based perspectives of corporate brands. It aims to outline a normative, diagnostic, model of corporate brand management – The AC⁴ID Test. The origins of the model date back to the late 1990s. The model is predicated on the need to understand the seven identity types forming a corporate brand constellation. The seven corporate brand identity facets are the actual, communicated, conceived, covenanted, cultural, ideal and desired corporate brand identities. As a general but not an absolute rule there should be meaningfully strategic alignment between the corporate brand and other identity modes in the corporate brand constellation. The notion of temporal misalignment is also articulated. Temporal misalignment is important since different identity types inhabit diverse time frames and, sometimes, temporal misalignment can be perilous (it is often a necessary dynamic too). The notion of the identity‐wheel of change is articulated: a change of one identity may trigger a chain reaction throughout the corporate brand identity constellation.

This article is enlightened by extant research and conceptualisations on corporate brands and corporate branding theories. It is also informed by recent, cross‐disciplinary reviews of the identity literatures. The AC⁴ID Test framework incorporates recent insights vis‐à‐vis the diagnostic framework in corporate branding contexts.

Adopting identity‐based perspectives of corporate brands provides an advance in terms of our comprehension of them. A corporate brand can be viewed as a distinct identity type. An identity mode that is capable of being separate and divisible from the corporate identity from which it is derived. Corporate brands have multiple/attendant identities, which may be characterised as a constellation of corporate brand identities: these identities inform the identity of the AC⁴ID Test of Corporate Brand Management.

The AC⁴ID Test corporate brand identity framework outlined in this article draws on recent advances in the field and adapts earlier versions of the framework so that it has a utility for the corporate branding domain.