building brand commitment: a behavioural approach to internal brand management

customers might even identify with.This is not enough, however, togenerate customer trust or even loyaltytowards the brand. Michael Maskus,Head of Group Marketing of theinternational financial services providerAllianz Group states ‘You have todeliver what you promise.’

If the promise made in the brand’sadvertising is not consistently kept inthe customer brand experience along

INTRODUCTIONWhen it comes to brand manage-ment, most people (practitioners andscientists alike) think of conductingmarket research, taking decisions aboutbrand architecture or brand position-ing, and managing advertising andmedia agencies. All this — if it is welldone — will lead to high brandawareness among target customers anda compelling brand promise that target

� HENRY STEWART PUBLICATIONS 1479-1803 BRAND MANAGEMENT VOL. 12, NO. 4, 279–300 APRIL 2005 279

Christoph BurmannUniversity of Bremen, Chair forInnovative Brand Management,Postfach 330 440, D-28334Bremen, Germany

Tel: �49 421 218 8638Fax: �49 421 218 8646E-mail: [email protected]

Building brand commitment:A behavioural approach to internalbrand managementReceived (in revised form): 17th November, 2004

CHRISTOPH BURMANNis a professor at the University of Bremen, Germany. He gained his doctorate at the Institute for Marketing atthe University of Munster. In 1993 he became an associate professor. He received his habilitation (universityteaching qualification) in February 2002, and since October 2002 has held the Chair for Innovative BrandManagement (LiM�) at the University of Bremen.

SABRINA ZEPLINis a doctorate fellow at the Chair for Innovative Brand Management (LiM�) at the University of Bremen,Germany. She previously studied business administration in Munster (Germany) and Zaragoza (Spain), duringwhich time she completed internships in Germany, Japan and the USA in advertising agencies and consumer andindustrial goods companies. After she finished her university studies she worked for The Boston ConsultingGroup in Hamburg (Germany). Her research now focuses on internal brand management.

AbstractIn this paper a holistic model for internal brand management is presented. It is based on theidentity-based brand management approach according to which a brand — just like a person —needs to have a consistent and continuous identity in order to be trusted. Focusing on the role ofemployees in ensuring consistency of the brand identity, two new behavioural constructs aredeveloped. The first construct — brand citizenship behaviour — outlines what it means foremployees to ‘live the brand’. The second construct — brand commitment — explains thepsychological processes that lead employees to show brand citizenship behaviour. Three key leversfor generating brand commitment (brand-centred human resources management, brandcommunication and brand leadership) and four context factors (culture fit, structure fit, employeeknow-how and disposable resources) are illustrated as building blocks of internal brandmanagement. The theoretical insights are complemented by many real-life examples extracted fromin-depth interviews with brand managers and experts.

the typical outside-in perspective of thewidely used image-management ap-proach, the identity-based approachconsiders an inside-out perspective asequally relevant.4 Kapferer states, forexample, ‘In terms of brand manage-ment, identity precedes image.’5 Whilebrand image is on the receiver’s side —it describes how external target groupsperceive the brand — brand identity ison the sender’s side. It can be definedas those sustainable cross-spatiotem-poral attributes that determine theessence and character of a brand fromthe internal perspective.6

The proponents of the identity-based brand management approachdisagree about the dimensions of brandidentity. While Kapferer7 suggests thedimensions physique, personality, cul-ture, self-image, reflection and relation-ship in his brand identity prism, Aaker8

proposes the four aspects of a brand asproduct, organisation, person and sym-bol, de Chernatony9 argues for thesix components brand vision, cul-ture, positioning, personality, relation-ship and presentation, and Burmann etal.10 put forward the six dimen-sions brand heritage, organisationalcapabilities, brand values, personality,vision and performance. Irrespective ofthe different categorisations and labels,what they all share is the inclusion oforganisational values, capabilities andbehaviour as an important part of thebrand identity.

The strength of a brand, measured byhow often consumers buy and recom-mend the brand, is determined by theconsistency of the different brand iden-tity components. This consistency en-sures that the gaps between the desiredand actual brand identity and theoutside perception of the brand (brandimage) remain small.11 As difficult as it

all customer–brand touch points, thecredibility and the overall strength ofthe brand will suffer. This lack ofconsistency led the discount fashionretail brand C&A into a crisis. TheirUK television ads asked viewers to‘discover the difference at C&A today’.Yet only a negative difference could befound: badly designed stores, low-quality unfashionable products andunfriendly personnel. As a result,disappointed customers denigrated thebrand name C&A to ‘cheap & awful’.In 2000, C&A closed all of its130 stores in Great Britain. Simi-larly, in Germany where C&A madefancy cinema ads to target the youngaudience, those who went into thestores were taken aback by the 80s-style store design and the sales per-sonnel who could obviously hardlyremember their youth. C&A GermanyHead of Communications, ThorstenRolfes, admits ‘The mistake was thatour product and our stores could notfulfil the advertising promise at thattime.’1 Now, finally, C&A is aligning itsadvertising and its brand experience inorder to regain consumer trust andloyalty.

This example shows that, for abrand to be strong, it needs to havemore than appealing advertising. Justlike a person, a brand needs tohave a credible identity in order tobe trusted. According to a rela-tively new area of brand researchthat this paper is based on, strongbrands are built through identity-basedbrand management.2 In order to bet-ter understand the development andfunctioning of brands and brand–customer relationships, the proponentsof this approach have transferred in-sights from human psychology researchto brand management.3 In contrast to

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only been acknowledged by anincreasing number of branding experts(consultants and practitioners),13 butalso by brand researchers.14 In theirresearch they generally focus onspecific aspects such as organisationalculture,15 leadership16 or the manage-ment process,17 but so far there existsno holistic model for internal branding.Such an integrated model is presentedin this paper.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGYThe model in this paper is based on areview of existing research in the fieldsof brand management and implementa-tion, organisational identity, cultureand behaviour, internal communica-tion and leadership, as well as in-depth interviews with brand managersand branding experts. The 11 semi-structured one- to three-hour inter-views were carried out from April toJune 2004 in Germany. Interviewpartners were two brand consultantsand nine top-level managers respon-sible for the corporate brand and/orinternal branding in the financial serv-ices, telecommunications, electronicsand transport/tourism industries. Theinterview partners were chosen basedon their expertise in internal branding.The considered companies (ranging insize from 3,500 to 400,000 employees)were all in service or service-intensiveindustries where internal branding is ofhigh relevance.

Using an exploratory research ap-proach, the interviews were used toconfirm, reject or adapt the authors’first hypotheses from a thorough litera-ture review, in an iterative process, andto gather best practice examples ininternal branding. Within this iterativeprocess the existing constructs of or-

might be, ensuring consistency amongthe brand’s advertising and official com-munications is not the most critical partin achieving a strong brand iden-tity. Customer brand experience isdriven by all customer–brand touchpoints, and many of these are deter-mined by employees — not onlythose in the marketing department,but all employees who contribute di-rectly or indirectly to the brand’sproducts, services and formal or infor-mal communications. For this reasonall employees need to be familiarwith the brand identity concept andbe committed to live the brand in-ternally and externally. If this is not thecase, employees might easily under-mine the advertising-driven expecta-tions with their words and actions. Anexample illustrates this: the mobiletelecommunications provider O2 withits claim ‘O2 can do’ tries to ensure thatevery employee feels ‘I can do’ so thatclients realise ‘O2 really can do’. As theHead of Corporate Culture & Eventsat O2, Nicolas Georghiou, says ‘Iftoo many customers had negative ex-periences, people would soon startmaking fun of the claim ‘‘O2 can do’’.’

Therefore, to achieve a strong brandidentity the external, market-orientedbrand management needs to becomplemented by an institutionalisedinternal brand management. In manycompanies this is still not the case. Asurvey among 105 brand managers inGermany revealed that less than 50 percent had taken internal brandingmeasures. The survey also showed,however, that those companies thathad implemented internal brandmanagement were significantly moresuccessful in achieving their financialbrand targets.12 The importance ofinternal brand management has not


A BEHAVIOURAL APPROACH TO INTERNAL BRAND MANAGEMENT

recalls proudly ‘One of our storepartners made an amazing discoverythis week. He said that we are not, ashe once thought, in the coffee businessserving people. He said we are in thepeople business serving coffee.’19

In the pursuit of finding out whatexactly is to be expected fromemployees if one asks them to ‘live thebrand’, in their research review, theauthors came across the construct oforganisational citizenship behaviour —a construct that has received muchattention in organisational behaviourresearch. Also known as prosocialbehaviour, organisational citizenshipbehaviour refers to individual voluntarybehaviours outside of role expectations(non-enforceable functional extra-rolebehaviours) that are not directly orexplicitly acknowledged by the formalreward system, and which, in aggregate,enhance the performance of theorganisation.20 From what the authorslearned in the interviews, it is a verysimilar type of functional extra-rolebehaviour in favour of the brand thatreally brings a brand to life, so thisconcept has been adopted and modifiedto fit the context of internal branding,and the construct brand citizenshipbehaviour has been coined. Brandcitizenship behaviour is not only thatpart of organisational citizenship be-haviour that is brand-oriented, but alsogoes beyond the scope of organisationalcitizenship behaviour as it also includesexternally targeted behaviours, whileorganisational citizenship behaviour isgenerally considered to be intra-organisational. For a visualisation of therelationship between the two con-structs, see Figure 1.

Brand citizenship behaviour is anaggregate construct which describes anumber of generic (brand- or industry-

ganisational citizenship behaviour andorganisational commitment from or-ganisational behaviour were modifiedand integrated into the model in orderto explain employees’ brand-related at-titudes and behaviour. The resultingconstructs and the full model are sub-sequently explained.

Employee behaviour: Theoften-underestimated success factorin brand buildingThe crucial role of employees in brandbuilding is due to the fact that allsources of brand identity are based onthe decisions and actions of employees.In service industries this becomesparticularly apparent. This does notsolely hold true for service industriesor for customer contact personnel,however. Gummesson18 coined theterm ‘part-time marketers’ for thoseemployees outside of marketing or salesto emphasise that they have a majorindirect influence on the customerbrand experience through their respon-sibility for the quality of the company’sproducts and services and throughtheir role as internal supplier/serviceprovider for those employees withcustomer contact.

Some companies have put thisinsight into action extremely well. Thecoffee chain Starbucks is an outstand-ing example. It spends very littleon traditional advertising activities,but expects its employees to createan exceptional experience for thecustomer. Employees’ training, theirbenefits, their sense of solidarity — andtherefore their attitude and presenta-tion — are consistently a cut abovethose of employees in the rest ofthe restaurant and fast food industry.Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks


BURMANN AND ZEPLIN

tion as a whole and active participationin its governance, in monitoring itsenvironment and in looking for its bestinterests).

These dimensions were discussed inthe interviews, and the authors learnedthat they are relevant for enhanc-ing the brand identity as well, butwith a slightly different focus. Whilefor organisational citizenship behaviourthe first dimension is internally di-rected (helping colleagues), for brandcitizenship behaviour it should also bedirected at customers — thus thefocus is wider. For the other sixdimensions, the focus of brand citizen-ship behaviour is narrower — thesedimensions are concentrated on thebrand instead of the whole organisa-tion. For better understanding, someof the dimensions were renamed, andthe following list of seven dimensionsof brand citizenship behaviour com-piled:

1. Helping behaviour: positive at-titude, friendliness, helpfulness andempathy towards internal and exter-nal customers, taking responsibilityfor tasks outside of own area if

independent) employee behaviours thatenhance the brand identity. Thesegeneric behaviours can be categorisedinto dimensions, just as has beendone in organisational citizenship be-haviour research. For organisationalcitizenship behaviour, Podsakoff et al.21

have identified seven commonly ac-knowledged dimensions in a litera-ture review: (1) helping behaviour(voluntarily helping others with, orpreventing the occurrence of, work-related problems), (2) organisationalcompliance (meticulous adherence tothe organisation’s rules, regulationsand procedures, even when no oneobserves or monitors it), (3) in-dividual initiative (engagement in task-related behaviour at a level that is sofar beyond minimally required orgenerally expected levels that it reachesa voluntary stage), (4) sportsmanship(willingness to tolerate the inevitableinconvenience and impositions of workwithout complaining), (5) organisa-tional loyalty (promoting the organisa-tion to outsiders), (6) self-development(voluntary improvement of knowledge,skills and abilities) and (7) civic virtue(macro-level interest in the organisa-


OCB, organisational behaviour; BCB, Brand citizenship behaviour

Figure 1 Relationship between the constructs of organisational citizenship behaviour and brand citizenship behaviour

Organisation

Brand

External target groupsOCBOCB BCBBCB


age of employees who truly livethe corporate brand identity is oftenreported to be very low, despite theproven positive effect of this behaviouron customer loyalty.24 So what drivesemployees to display the desired brandcitizenship behaviour?

BRAND COMMITMENT AS KEY DRIVEROF BRAND CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIOURThe authors argue that brand commit-ment is the key driver of brandcitizenship behaviour. The authorsdefine brand commitment as the ex-tent of psychological attachment ofemployees to the brand, which in-fluences their willingness to exert extraeffort towards reaching the brand goals— in other words, to exert brandcitizenship behaviour. The term ‘com-mitment’ has been used frequently inthe context of internal branding,25 butmostly in a rather common-sensemanner without theoretical founda-tion. In the case of a corporatebrand, the brand commitment con-struct as the authors understand it issynonymous with organisational com-mitment, which is generally defined asa psychological bond between theemployee and the organisation.26 Or-ganisational commitment has beenshown to induce functional extra-rolebehaviour.27 The hypothesis of thispaper is that this applies to brandcitizenship behaviour as well. In thiscase, brand commitment can be inter-preted as the latent variable behind theseven typical behaviours that are sum-marised for brand citizenship be-haviour. In line with O’Reilly andChatman,28 and based on Kelman,29

three drivers of brand commitment— compliance, identification and in-ternalisation — are distinguished.

necessary, for example, following upon complaints.

2. Brand consideration: adherence tobrand-related behaviour guidelinesand reflection of brand impactbefore communicating or takingaction in any situation.

3. Brand enthusiasm: showing extrainitiative while engaging in brand-related behaviours.

4. Sportsmanship: no complaining,even if engagement for the brandcauses inconvenience; willingness toengage for the brand even at highopportunity costs.

5. Brand endorsement: recommenda-tion of the brand to others also innon-job-related situations, for ex-ample, to friends; passing on thebrand identity to newcomers in theorganisation.

6. Self-development: willingness tocontinuously enhance brand-relatedskills.

7. Brand advancement: contribution tothe adaptation of the brand identityconcept to changing market needsor new organisational competencies,for example, through passing oncustomer feedback or generating in-novative ideas.

Deutsche Bank probably had thosekinds of behaviours in mind when itdeveloped its brand claim ‘A passion toperform’. It wanted its employees notto act as ‘sales robots’ but to showmore empathy for their clients. Settingup these expectations is, however,far easier than actually getting theemployees to act this way. Surveyresults demonstrate that clients are notsatisfied with Deutsche Bank’s servicequality.22 Consequently the credibilityand image scores for the brand areequally low.23 In general, the percent-


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tification can vary across the differentclassifications.34 Strong identificationwill induce brand citizenship be-haviours due to a feeling of personalobligation to the brand as a group, thegroup of direct colleagues, the CEO orthe immediate superior. Identificationcan be advanced through emphasis onbrand distinctiveness and competitionand through charismatic leadership andindividual mentorship,35 as well asthrough a strong organisational culturewith common rituals and symbols.36

Internalisation of the brand identitydelineates the appropriation of corebrand values into one’s self-concept asguiding principles for one’s actions. Inits extreme form there is completecongruence between brand and per-sonal values. The self-concept is ‘thetotality of an individual’s thoughts andfeelings having reference to him-self’,37 including traits, competencesand values. An individual strives forself-congruity and therefore acts in away that is consistent with the self-concept due to intrinsic motivation.Internalisation is developed throughorganisational socialisation if there is notalready a high congruence between theindividual’s values and the brand valuesbefore the new employee’s entry intothe organisation.38 The socialisationprocess is driven by an informaltransmission of values through col-leagues and superiors, as well as byformal value communication.

The three drivers of commitmentare not interdependent. The brandcommitment of each individual can bebuilt on any one of the dimensions oron all three, while the dominance ofone or the other dimension might varyfrom person to person. The brandcitizenship behaviour is not influencedby all of the dimensions in the same

Compliance with the brand iden-tity describes the adoption of certainbehaviours that are consistent withthe aspired brand identity in or-der to gain specific extrinsic rewardsor to avoid penalties. The com-pliance dimension is based on Adams’Equity Theory,30 which argues thatindividuals rationally balance contribu-tions made (inputs) and rewards gained(outputs). It is easily comprehensibleand has been empirically proven byO’Reilly and Chatman that commit-ment based on compliance does notyield any behaviour that goes beyondrole prescriptions. It will, however,ensure adherence to rules, which is anecessary basis for brand citizenshipbehaviour. Compliance is driven by theorganisational structure, including in-centive systems that determine formalrewards and sanctions,31 and the or-ganisational culture that determinesinformal rewards and sanctions throughsocial control.32

Identification with the brand identityrefers to the acceptance of socialinfluence due to a sense of belongingto the group determining the brandexperience, and a perception of beingintertwined with the group’s fate — ieits success or failures are perceived asone’s own. The identification dimen-sion relies on the brand identitybeing perceived as a coherent groupidentity.33 It is derived from SocialIdentity Theory, according to whichthe individual’s identity is comprisednot only of a personal identity butalso of a social identity encompass-ing salient group classifications. Theseclassifications can be either self-induced(‘self-stereotyping’), if the individualconsiders them self-esteem enhancing,or they can be imposed by others.Consequently the strength of iden-



search, they resulted in a holistic modelwith three central levers for generatingcommitment and four context factorsfor the evolution of brand commitmentand brand citizenship behaviour (seeFigure 2).

THREE LEVERS TO GENERATEBRAND COMMITMENTThe interviews revealed that thereis no panacea for generating brandcommitment. A large number ofmeasures can be taken and need to becoordinated. The essence of thesemeasures has been combined in threelevers: brand-centred human resources(HR) activities, brand communicationsand brand leadership. Their theoreticalbases and their application to internalbrand management will be explainedsubsequently. The brand managers andbranding experts the authors talked tounanimously pointed out, however,that these levers will not lead to successif the context factors are not in line: aculture and structure fit are necessaryprerequisites of brand commitment,and brand commitment only results in

way. This paper’s hypothesis is that astrong internalisation has the largestinfluence on brand citizenship be-haviour, while compliance has theweakest influence.

A HOLISTIC MODEL FORINTERNAL BRANDINGBrand commitment does not emergeall by itself. Several empirical studiesconfirm this: the surveys conducted bythe Gallup Organization in Germany39

and by Towers Perrin in the USA40

showed that under a fifth of respond-ing employees were highly engagedfor their corporate brand, voluntarilygiving that extra effort on an ongo-ing basis. An equal number were dis-engaged, meaning they had probably‘checked out’ from their work. Theremainder — roughly two-thirds of thesample — were moderately engaged atbest.

How can this challenge be mastered?The interviews revealed best practices,potential success factors and difficultiesof internal brand management. To-gether with a review of existing re-


Figure 2 A holistic model for internal brand management

Brand citizenship

behavior

Brand citizenship behaviour

Brand Commitment

Brand commitment

Employeeknow-how

Employeeknow-how

Disposable resources

Disposable resources

Brandstrength

Brandstrength

Culture fitCulture fit

Structure fitStructure fit

Brand-centred HR activities

Brand-centred HR activities

Brandcommunication

Brandcommunication

Brandleadership

Brandleadership

BURMANN AND ZEPLIN

the corporate brand.’ At O2, forexample, a team of HR andbrand managers has jointly developedapplicant- and employee-evaluationguidelines based on the brand identity.But, as obvious as it seems, in manycompanies the necessary alignmentbetween HR and brand management isoften neglected. This might be due tothe fact that evaluating the personalidentity–brand identity fit is not aneasy task. There exist promisingscreening methods42 that can beapplied, however. Apart from thesemethods, allowing applicants to spendtime with experienced employees andsee the traits of successful employeesbefore entering the organisation shouldhelp to achieve personal identity–brandidentity fit through self-selection.43

A second opportunity for the HRmanagement to contribute to thegeneration of brand identity internalisa-tion is the phasing in of newemployees. Usually the HR depart-ment organises some type of orienta-tion training for new employees. Thishas a major influence on the initialsocialisation process, and thereforeneeds to convey the brand identitywith its heritage and vision, its values,capabilities and personality. In the laterstages of employees’ careers, executiveprogrammes that again highlight thebrand identity can complement thisinitial training. In addition to formaltraining, social events and a mentorprogramme can ensure the informaltransmission of the brand identity.Several studies have demonstrated thatinstitutionalised socialisation has asignificant positive impact on thegeneration of organisational commit-ment, organisational identification andperson–organisation fit.44 The sameshould hold true for brand commit-

brand citizenship behaviour if eachemployee is given the necessary know-how and resources to ensure a consis-tent brand experience.

The alignment of the context fac-tors will not generate identificationor internalisation, but will enablecompliance. Brand commitment basedon identification is mainly gener-ated through brand leadership, whilebrand identity internalisation can beachieved through HR activities andcommunication.

Ensuring person–brand fit through HRactivitiesDuring the interviews, one very inter-esting discussion evolved around thequestion of whether some peoplenaturally have a disposition for higherbrand commitment, while for somepeople it is just part of their personalitynever to be committed to anything. Inthis generalised form, the authorsstrongly disagree with this opinion. Itcan be assumed, however, that somepeople will have a stronger congruencebetween their personal values and thebrand values before entering the com-pany. Since in that case the core brandvalues are already part of their self-concept, less socialisation effort isnecessary.

A brand-centred style of HRmanagement needs to ensure thatapplicants with high personal identity–brand identity fit are recruited andselected, and that those employees witha high person–brand fit are promoted.This means that the brand identityconcept needs to be the basis foremployer marketing, and employeeselection and promotion criteria. AsInd41 states ‘Recruitment is a brandingexercise, it’s part of the management of



branding issues irrelevant for their dailywork they will take no interest inunderstanding the brand identity. Onlyafter each and every employee recog-nises that he or she personally has asignificant influence on the customerbrand experience, can an understandingof the brand identity concept be trans-mitted. Before discussing the suitabilityof different communication media forcreating an understanding of the brandidentity concept, a clear definition ofwhat to communicate is necessary. Averbalisation of the brand identityconcept is needed that is comprehen-sible and appeals to all employees,from board member to assembly lineworker. This is not referring to theone-page copy strategy or creativebrief that is given to the advertisingagency — that will mean nothing tomost employees outside the marketingdepartment.

The verbalisation of the brandidentity concept has to meet tworequirements that seem to be inconflict: on one hand it has toaccurately represent all facets of thebrand identity, and on the other handit has to be memorable.45 Although anexhaustive brand book46 will be able tocapture the full complexity of thebrand identity, it will hardly be entirelymemorised by all employees, if evenread. A brand book might, however,serve as a good guideline for those whodevelop internal branding activities, forexample, HR and internal communica-tions staff. Many companies havecomposed a brand value statement as aguideline for employees. As thesestatements tend to be fairly generic andtoo long, however, they are difficultto remember. Leoncini47 points outthat many companies mistake corevalues for what he calls ‘permis-

ment based on brand identity in-ternalisation.

Generating brand awareness andunderstanding through internalcommunicationsIf personal identity–brand identity fit isachieved through HR activities, thepersonal and brand values are con-gruent, but only unconsciously. Al-though in that case there is a generaldisposition to act congruent to thebrand identity, this might lead tothoughtless brand-damaging actions.All employees need to be consciouslyaware of the brand identity. In somecompanies — especially ex-monopo-lists or engineering-driven companies— it is necessary to generate awarenessfor brand relevance in a first step. In manycompanies, the responsibility for thebrand is delegated to the market-ing department. Nicholas Georghiou,Head of Corporate Culture & Eventsat O2, supports this: ‘The largestchallenge is to give employees in areasfar away from the customer — such asprocurement — a feeling for thebrand.’ Similarly Ralf Klein-Bolting,General Director of Group Marketingat Deutsche Bahn (German Rail),states: ‘It’s a major issue for us thatbrand is still generally equated withmarketing, or especially advertising,and responsibility for the brand is seenonly at the marketing department. It’snot easy to make all employeesunderstand that everybody has respon-sibility for the brand — that a cleanrailway station or a friendly welcomefrom a ticket inspector is just asimportant for the brand image asthe technologically sophisticated high-speed train.’

So long as employees consider


BURMANN AND ZEPLIN

casual shoes. Similarly Disney createdthe brand mantra ‘fun family entertain-ment’ which has helped it to declinenon-brand-identity-congruent partner-ing offers, for example, from a mutualfund designed for families to save fortheir children’s college expenses, be-cause mutual funds do not tend to beentertaining.

Aaker and Joachimsthaler52 suggestan entirely different approach to ver-balising the brand identity. They regardbrand value statements as ‘ambiguousand uninteresting, especially becausesuch lists fail to capture the emotion ofthe brand and its vision’. They advo-cate internal role models, ie stories,programmes, policies, events or peoplethat perfectly represent the brandidentity. Personalities — such as afounder or a strong, visible CEO witha clear brand vision — are argued to bepowerful role models. Putting theinternal perception of the brand iden-tity in the hands of a single person isnot without danger, however, as willbe demonstrated in the followingsection on leadership.

There is still quite a gap betweenthis general understanding of the brandidentity concept and the everydayroutines of employees. The brandmantra or internal role model needs tobe broken down into specific require-ments for employees. This means thatspecific behaviour guidelines andtargets have to be developed as‘strategic imperatives’53 — eithercentrally or with employee participa-tion. The hypothesis of this paper isthat employee participation will gener-ate a stronger brand commitment basedon identification and internalisation,while imposed behaviour guidelineswill only generate weak commitmentbased on compliance. There is no

sion-to-play values’ — those valuesthat ‘simply reflect the minimumbehavioural and social standards re-quired of any employee [that] tend notto vary much across companies’. Thismight result from involving too manypeople in deciding on the brand valuestatement. Consensus building in anextensive group process makes it vir-tually impossible to generate a short listof words or statements that capture theessence of the brand identity and thatwould not fit a competitor brand justas well. Leoncini48 asserts that the bestbrand identity verbalisation efforts aredriven by small teams that include theCEO, any founders who are stillwith the company, and a handful ofkey employees. This is supported byJens Gutsche, Director of MarketingStrategy and Brand Management atDeutsche Telekom: ‘This is not ademocratic process, it has to besomewhat totalitarian.’

In order to be memorable, a brandvalue statement has to be short and tothe point. Research has shown thatthe human memory can store aboutseven chunks of information at onetime, not more.49 The most conse-quential reduction of the brand identityto a few words is proposed by Keller50

with his brand mantra concept. Brandmantras are ‘short three to five wordphrases that capture the irrefutable es-sence or spirit of the brand’.51 They area memorable shorthand of the com-plex brand identity concept that canprovide ‘guard rails’ for the employees’decisions and actions. Nike adoptedthe three-word brand mantra ‘authen-tic athletic performance’ to guide itsbranding efforts. This has saved thecompany from expanding its productline into areas that would not havefitted the brand identity, for example,



by a central department, usually thecommunication department. Mostly itis the push principle that is applied:generally written materials (for ex-ample, house journals, newsletters) aredistributed regardless of whether thetarget audience actually receives them.This should be complemented bymedia using the pull principle, forexample, an intranet. Here employeeshave to actively seek informationinstead of it being ‘dumped’ onthem, which can easily lead to infor-mation overload. Centrally organisedevents are a third alternative forcentral internal communication, basedon interactive communication. O2, whichdescribes itself as a ‘people- andevent-driven organisation’, regularlyorganises ‘blue events’ (blue is thecorporate colour) for all employees,which deal with aspects of the brandand other important marketing topics.Central communication is useful forcreating awareness and distributinggeneral up-to-date information aboutthe brand. Of course external com-munication also affects employees. VicePresident of Brand & Design atSiemens, Wolfgang Dotz, illustrates

consensus, however, among the brandmanagers — at a large German bankthe guidelines are developed byemployees and included in targetsagreed with superiors. At Tchibo, acoffee shop and non-food retail chain,specific guidelines for service personnelare developed centrally and controlledby mystery shoppers every threeweeks. Irrespective of how theguidelines are developed, a thoroughcustomer–brand touch-point analysis54

for external and internal customerrelationships is a necessary prerequi-site.

Alongside the rather rational be-haviour guidelines, the brand identityconcept needs an emotional appeal togenerate internal brand commitment.55

In order to achieve this, profes-sionally managed internal communica-tion around the brand identity conceptis crucial. Internal communication iscomposed of three forms that need tobe aligned: central communication,cascade communication and lateralcommunication (see Figure 3), each ofwhich includes certain specific types ofcommunication media/channels.

Central communication is distributed


Figure 3 Three forms of internal communication

Central communicationCentral communication Cascade communicationCascade communication Lateral communicationLateral communication

Conveying informationConvincing sceptics

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Lateral communication describes theinformal transmission of informationbetween employees regardless of theirposition in the hierarchy or division,commonly referred to as the ‘officegrapevine’. This is the most powerfulof the three forms of internal com-munication in convincing sceptics,because information from peers is mostlikely to be remembered and toinfluence the decisions and actions ofindividuals. Lateral communication is,however, very difficult to control andexploit for internal communicationpurposes. One promising approach tothis is organisational storytelling. ‘Storiesand myths about how the organisationdealt with key competitors in the past,how it survived a downturn in theeconomy, how it developed a new andexciting product, how it dealt with avalued employee, and so on, not onlyspell out the basic mission and specificgoals (and thereby reaffirm them) butalso reaffirm the organisation’s pictureof itself, its own theory of how to getthings done and how to handle internalrelationships.’56 Shared storytelling cantherefore be used to construct acollective sense or alignment aroundthe brand identity concept.57 Stories donot only evolve coincidentally, butthey can also be planted deliberately toconvey the brand identity concept.58 Inan attempt to professionalise organisa-tional storytelling, Nike has appointedcorporate storytellers, a number ofexecutives who spread legends thatsupport ‘just doing it’,59 and O2 isposting ‘can do stories’ in its intranet inorder to describe desired behaviour.

Although this paper’s hypothesis isthat lateral communication is the mosteffective way by which to generatebrand commitment, all three formshave to be employed as they comple-

this: ‘Sometimes some things are easierto achieve through an article inthe ‘‘Manager Magazin’’ than throughmessages from the executive board.’

Cascade communication starts at thetop of the organisation and is passedon down through the hierarchy. Thismethod also suits the distribution ofinformation, but is more time-consum-ing. Its advantage is that it is moreconvincing to sceptical employees, asinformation from a direct superior willprobably be more relevant and morecredible to an employee than informa-tion from a central department. Inorder to communicate the brand iden-tity concept, in some companies atoolbox has been developed by thebrand or communication departmentthat can be used by managers to preparebrand workshops. Even more convinc-ing than hierarchical communicationsare team workshops without a superior.These self-learning teams of about tenemployees elect a moderator from thegroup, and can be supported by avisualisation tool called learning maps.Learning maps are large poster-sizedgraphical representations of a topic, inthis case the brand identity concept.They provide information in an illustra-tive way and encourage employees tothink about the brand and its implica-tions, and develop personal and groupaction plans. A large German bank hasemployed learning maps to communi-cate its brand identity concept onall levels. The responsible manager isvery satisfied with the results: ‘To theemployees this does not feel like in-doctrination from above. Since theyhave developed the implications fortheir actions themselves, they are con-vinced of the agreed upon targets andwill try to achieve them with highcommitment.’



ingly, in a press article about theAllianz Group stakeholders’ meeting,the CEO, Michael Diekmann, is citedwith the quote: ‘We deliver what wepromise’ — which is very close to theadvertising claim: ‘The power behindthe promise’.

The downside of the prominent roleof the CEO is that a few thoughtlesswords or actions can severely damagethe brand image. This was, for ex-ample, the case when Deutsche BankCEO, Josef Ackermann, made a courtappearance that was perceived by thepress as very arrogant. Another risk isthat the brand identity might becomeso dependent on the CEO’s personalitythat it is left without orientation aftera handover to a successor. This hap-pened, for example, at EasyJet after thecharismatic founder Stelios Haji-Ion-nou left. It is therefore crucial that theCEO adjusts to the brand, not viceversa. According to Bernd Michael,Chairman of Grey Worldwide, a CEOwith charisma and inner strength canbe a powerful source of added value forthe brand, but only if he or she iswilling to subordinate their personalityto the brand.61 As Josef Hattig, formerCEO of the Beck’s brewery, phrases it:‘Is the brand the boss or is the boss thebrand? . . . The consumer interacts withthe brand, not with the company, sothe answer is: the brand is the boss!’.

On the micro level, each executivealso needs to act as a role modelfor the brand. Social learning theory62

argues that people learn new attitudesand behaviours by observing the be-haviours of other people. They eitherlearn through imitation of these be-haviours or from their consequences.Social learning can be interpreted asthe informal part of the socialisationprocess through which employees learn

ment each other. From the interviews,five criteria for the success of in-ternal brand communication could beextracted. First of all, the companyneeds to openly communicate to itsemployees so that they feel informed.Information needs to be clear, specificand relevant to the respective recipient.Secondly, patience is necessary: usuallyit takes several communication roundsfor the brand message to sink in.

Encouraging brand leadership onall levelsThe third essential lever for generatingbrand commitment is leadership. With-out brand leadership, the greatest com-munication efforts will be of no availdue to a lack of credibility and ur-gency. There are two brand-relevantlevels of leadership to be distinguished:the macro level refers to the role ofthe CEO and executive board in thebrand management process, while themicro level deals with personal leadershipof executives throughout the organisa-tion.

On the macro level, the executiveboard and the CEO in particular havea large influence on both internal andexternal brand perceptions. Rolke60

demonstrated the empirical correlationbetween the CEO’s image and thecorporate brand image. The same istrue internally. Employees will onlytake internal branding efforts seriouslyif they are supported by the CEO’swords and actions. Therefore internalbranding needs to start at the top withconvincing the CEO and the executiveboard of the brand relevance and thebrand identity concept, so that they actas role models. Michael Maskus sup-ports this: ‘At Allianz Group, the CEOfeels responsible for the brand.’ Accord-


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The characteristics need to be fosteredin executive training and coaching.68

Several practitioners emphasise thenecessity for empowerment of employeesin this context.69 This fits in with thispaper’s theoretical model, as employeeswith brand commitment based onidentification and internalisation canand must be given more freedom thanthose without commitment or withcommitment based only on com-pliance.

ALIGNING THE CONTEXT FACTORS:CULTURE AND STRUCTURE FITThe three levers brand-centred HRactivities, brand communication andbrand leadership will only lead to brandcommitment if the corporate cultureand structure are in line with the brandidentity concept. Corporate culture canbe defined as the totality of basicassumptions, values and norms that areshared by the organisation’s membersand transferred to new members, andthat determine their perception, inter-pretation patterns, thinking, decisionmaking and behaviour.70 Because ofthe large influence of corporate cultureon individual attitudes and behavioursthere has to be a brand identity–culturefit.71 Otherwise the brand identity con-cept will not be accepted among theorganisation’s members. A strong brandidentity that is lived by the employeesis based on values that are congruentwith those of the corporate culture.

This implies that the corporateculture has to be considered whendeveloping the brand identity concept.In general, a strong corporate culturewill support consistency of the brandidentity due to its informal coordina-tion impact through social control.72 Ifa misalignment between an aspired

about brand-related norms and values.In addition to role modelling, cer-tain types of leadership behavioursare hypothesised to be more suc-cessful in generating brand commit-ment. The type of leadership that theauthors assume to be most effec-tive in generating brand commitmentthrough identification is captured bestby the transformational leadership theorydeveloped by Burns and Bass.63

Transformational leadership withregard to the brand can be described asleaders’ behaviours that influence thevalue systems and aspirations of theindividual members of the organisationand induce them to transcend theirown self-interests for the sake of thebrand. It complements transactionalforms of leader behaviour that arebased on social exchange processes andwill most probably only result in brandcommitment based on compliance.Transformational leadership, however,has been shown to have significanteffects on organisational commit-ment and organisational citizenshipbehaviour.64 It has also been sug-gested that it enhances organisationalidentification,65 and it is thus as-sumed to likewise promote brandcommitment based on identifica-tion. Quantitative research by Bass66

resulted in the identification of fourfactors that characterise transfor-mational leaders: charisma, inspira-tion, intellectual stimulation andindividual consideration. The charac-teristics ‘charisma’ and ‘inspiration’were mentioned, unprompted, severaltimes in the interviews as successfactors in brand leadership, while therelevance of the other two for internalbrand management remains to beproven. Leaders can be trained todisplay all four factors, even charisma.67



takes advantage of the subcultures thatgenerally exist beneath the companyculture. Von der Oelsnitz79 suggestsparticularly fostering those subculturesthat are closer to the desired brandidentity concept than the overall cul-ture. Over time the counter-culturewill influence and change the overallculture.

Corporate structure is the secondcontext factor that needs to be aligned.It encompasses reward systems, in-frastructure and organisational struc-ture. The first step in aligning rewardsystems is to ensure that incentivestructures do not counteract the desiredbrand-consistent behaviours.80 In orderto explicitly promote brand-consistentbehaviours, such behaviours can beincluded in target agreements, sothat they can be monitored andrewarded upon successful implementa-tion. As employees can only turn brandcommitment into brand citizenshipbehaviour if they have access tothe necessary resources and know-how, appropriate information infrastruc-ture, planning, budgeting and controllingsystems also need to be in place.

In addition, employees can onlyshow brand citizenship behaviours ifthey are empowered to take thenecessary brand related decisions andget sufficient organisational support.Thus, the organisation structure hasto support the brand identity. Dif-ficulties in this area arise especiallyin companies with several divisionsthat are supposed to deliver in-tegrated services/products. For ex-ample, at Deutsche Telekom the fourdivisions have autonomy. This wasdesigned to foster in-house competi-tion, but causes problems in customerservice, as responsibilities for cus-tomers and competences are not clear.

brand identity and the organisationalculture is discovered, there are threepossibilities:73 adapting the brand iden-tity concept, managing around theculture or adapting the culture. Thefirst option is the easiest and generallythe most sensible. Since the companyculture reflects the brand history andheritage, adapting the brand identityconcept will ensure continuity. Manag-ing around culture can be necessary incertain circumstances. Daimler Chrys-ler, for example, founded a neworganisation for the new brand Smartbecause it would not have fitted withthe Mercedes culture. In some cases itis necessary to attempt to change theculture, for example, if the culture hasremained static for a long time whilethe customers’ demands and the com-petitors’ positioning have changed.

Changing the corporate culture isextremely difficult, because it emergesfrom social interaction and is not fullycontrollable. ‘Culture management’ ishardly possible; culture can only beinfluenced.74 This implies that adapta-tion of culture is a long-term processthat requires a lot of patience. Thereare two promising approaches to in-fluencing culture. The symbolic manage-ment approach75 draws upon the factthat culture evolves in a circularprocess.76 Symbols are manifestations ofmeaning that are determined by cul-ture-specific conventions. They are, onthe one hand, an outcome of organisa-tional culture, but on the other hand,they influence culture through theirinterpretation. By consciously creat-ing new symbols or slightly chang-ing existing symbols, culture can bechanged. According to Homburg andPflesser,77 symbols include narratives,lingo, rituals and architectural/officedesign. The counter-cultures approach78


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will be completely astonished at thecompetence of the agent.’

Not only does the overall or-ganisational structure need to reflectthe brand identity — internal brandmanagement itself needs institutionalisa-tion. This starts at the top of theorganisation. A formal responsibility ofone board member, ideally the CEO,for the brand demonstrates the impor-tance of brand management. Since thelevers of internal brand managementspan several organisational functions,the operational coordination of theactivities cannot be given to either themarketing department or the HRdepartment. A project organisation isnot adequate either, as internal brandmanagement is a continuous, non-temporary task. A promising approachseems to be the installation of anexecutive brand council including allfunctional and divisional heads asmembers, with regular meetings whereinternal and external brand manage-ment issues are discussed and decided.Such a council exists at 3M andKodak,83 and has recently been estab-lished by Opel84 and Deutsche Bahn.

Internal brand management can besupported in a decentralised manner bythe nomination of brand ambassadors ineach division and geographic area.They act as multipliers, communicatingthe brand identity concept to col-leagues and encouraging involvement.They make recommendations con-cerning brand issues to the cor-porate centre, and they share bestpractices in written form and inregular meetings with other brandambassadors.85 Siemens has applied thisconcept, which works especially wellfor such a diverse company with400,000 employees in 600 companiesand 190 countries.

In light of these brand-damagingissues, the executive board has installedseveral cross-divisional initiatives and isworking on a new, more brand-centred organisational structure. Theproblems of divisional organisationsbecome even more severe if thedivisions are once-separate companieswith their own brands and cultures thatwere acquired or merged to become adivision under one brand, as is the caseat Allianz Group, which promisesto offer integrated financial services.The situation is entirely different ifthe divisions have their own brands.Then they should be deliberatelyseparated to enable each to build itsown brand identity,81 while simul-taneously ensuring the optimal levelof synergies. BMW has implementedthis approach to divisions by givingits brands BMW, Mini and Rolls–Royce more autonomy in their brandmanagement.82

Another organisational challenge liesin the inclusion of external partners(suppliers or outsourcing partners) inthe internal brand management efforts.This is especially crucial if customercontact personnel such as call centreagents are outsourced. Brand commit-ment based on identification and in-ternalisation becomes difficult for anoutsourced agent, as the emotional dis-tance to the brand organisation is veryhigh. Vodafone has avoided this issueby keeping the call centre in house.As Christian Boing, Head of Proposi-tion Management, Vodafone Office,states: ‘Our call centre agents repre-sent the brand, so we want the bestemployees who are committed and livethe ‘‘Vodafone way’’. If they encountera question they cannot answer, theywill dig into the organisation for threehours and then call the customer who



transport/tourism and telecommunica-tions industries are being combined inorder to integrate the differentperspectives of internal brand manage-ment.

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Wasche’, Kress Report, 11th June.(2) Aaker, D. A. (1996) ‘Building Strong

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IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGEMENTAND RESEARCHIn this paper, a model for internalbrand management is presented that isbased on organisational behaviour re-search and best practices observed incompanies with strong brands (seeFigure 1). The authors argue thatthe strength of a brand depends onthe consistency of the customers’brand experiences along all customer-brand touch–points determined by thebrand’s identity. This paper’s mainhypothesis is that this can only beensured if all employees display brandcitizenship behaviour based on a strongindividual brand commitment. Thebest-practice measures taken to gener-ate brand commitment have beenconsolidated into three levers: brand-centred HR activities, brand com-munication and brand leadership. Basedon the authors’ insights from theinterviews, these levers are only fruitfulif the context factors of culture andstructure fit, employee know-how anddisposable resources are aligned withthe brand identity.

Since internal brand management isstill neglected in many companies, it ishoped that this paper draws manage-ment attention to the relevance ofthe subject, and gives valuable sugges-tions towards its execution. An in-stitutionalised process of internal brandmanagement with clear responsibilitiesshould be implemented for all cor-porate brands, although it is most ur-gent in the service industry.

The model serves as a sound basisfor further research. The authors arecurrently working on a large-scale quantitative validation of thehypotheses. Customer, expert andemployee surveys for selected brandsin the financial services, retail,


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