The European Journal of Marketing (EJM) has recently announced Professor John M.T. Balmer’s article, Strategic corporate brand alignment: Perspectives from identity based views of corporate, as being one of the most cited papers. According to Emerald Publishers, Professor Balmer’s article was one of five most recently cited articles from one of the field’s leading journals which make the biggest impact amongst peers and colleagues across the world. This publication is the top European marketing journal and a unique forum for the dissemination of high-quality scholarly research and thinking in marketing.
Professor Balmer’s 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.
Details of the article are as follows: John M.T. Balmer, (2012) “Strategic corporate brand alignment: Perspectives from identity based views of corporate brands“, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 46 Iss: 7/8, pp.1064 – 1092.
Professor John M.T. Balmer BA (Hons). MBA (Dunelm), PhD, A.Mus.TCL, Dip.M, PGCE is Director of the Marketing Research Group and Professor of Corporate Marketing at Brunel Business School and quondam Professor of Corporate Brand/Identity Management at Bradford School of Management.