John M.T. Balmer

• PhD MBA,BA (Hons), PGCE, DipM, AMusTCL.
• Professor Emeritus at Brunel Business School, University of London

Purpose This paper aims to introduce a new integrated strategic framework entitled, “The corporate identity, total corporate communications, stakeholders’ attributed identities, identifications and behaviours continuum” and elucidates the central and strategic importance of corporate identity apropos corporate communications, corporate image, attr...

Abstract Purpose: Adopting a corporate heritage marketing perspective, this indicative study examines the impact of the theoretical notions of a corporate heritage brand and augmented role identity on customer satisfaction. Preliminary research insights are based on Tong Ren Tang (TRT): China’s most celebrated traditional Chinese medicine company...

Purpose This article scrutinises the nature and salience of corporate heritage identities via the lens of the British Monarchy. A corporate heritage identity framework is introduced. The heritage identity construct is positioned vis‐à‐vis other related constructs such as nostalgia, tradition, and custom. Design/methodology/approach An embedded cas...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to advance the general understanding of the corporate heritage domain. The paper seeks to specify the requisites of corporate heritage and to introduce and explicate the corporate heritage marketing and total corporate heritage communications notions. Design/methodology/approach As befits an opening article of...

This article advances the theoretical and instrumental understanding of corporate heritage identities. This exploratory, empirical study focuses on both the nature and the relevance of corporate heritage identity as employed by managers for corporate identity management purposes. The research is undertaken within Britain's oldest brewery – one of t...

Reflects on the achievement and influence of the legendary corporate identity writer and consultant Wally Olins CBE in the week of the 10th anniversary of his death.

Whilst it is unquestionably a fact that the corporate brand and corporate communication fields are important, it is also indisputably the case that scholars and managers do not always fully realize the significance of these areas. Moreover, both fields, all-too-often, narrowly conceived because of a tunnel vision approach. This chapter seeks to add...

Scrutinizes design, corporate brand design, and corporate heritage brand design, with the latter constituting the substantive focus of this article. While design is a multifaceted notion, it is intrinsic to branding, brand management, and brand recognition. Particularises that corporate brand design is bipartite in character and encompasses corp...

This case history of the University of Strathclyde provides an exemplar of the strategic utility of heraldry – including heraldic mottos – as a valuable and durable visual design mode for corporate brands, and particularly for heritage institutions. With its focus on heraldic visual design, this case retrospective elucidates how the acquisition...

Corporate brand communication represents a distinctive approach to corporate communication by focusing on the corporate brand. Adopting a total corporate communication perspective, corporate brand communication comprises, promissory, primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary communication. Increasingly, organizations focus on their corporate bra...

Corporate brand architecture characterizes the types of corporate brand relationships between an organization’s mother brand and its subsidiaries along with inter-organizational corporate brand relationships. Consequently, different corporate brand architecture modes will materially influence the type of corporate brand communication.

Abstract Examines senior managers cognitions of CSR augmented corporate role identity in three, nascent, heritage organizations. The findings revealed CSR augmented role identity to be valuable in organizational, social, and spatial contexts. In specifying the significance of CSR as an augmented role identity, this was attributable to three qualiti...

SEE: https://theconversation.com/how-queen-elizabeth-ii-made-the-british-monarchy-into-a-global-brand-190394 Queen Elizabeth II was not just a monarch, she represented a global brand. And for the past seven decades, this brand has to some extent defined and promoted the British nation around the world. Brands are important corporate (or in this c...

Purpose This study aims to investigate how marketing communication (MC) and nascent corporate communication (CC) strategies are juxtaposed in the small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) setting. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative research method based on a multiple case study approach is elaborated in a South-East Asian emerging economy....

Formally introduces, and explicates, the nature, significance, and antecedents, of managerial corporate brand orientation notion. Emphasizes that managerial corporate identification is a key precursor of managerial corporate brand orientation and is an incontrovertible requisite for a strong, and authentic, organisational-wide corporate brand orien...

An analysis of corporate marketing-related articles is undertaken to identify trends in the literature. It scrutinizes past, present, and future directions of corporate marketing as an organization-wide philosophy and culture. Also revisits corporate marketing rationales and components. The premises of corporate marketing are enumerated. The challe...

Considers the significance of corporate identity, internal corporate brand/identity images, and corporate brand identification for corporate brand orientation. Three propositions based on the above are formulated. By highlighting the importance of these concepts, scholars are more fully able to comprehend the importance and connectedness between th...

Marshalling empirical insights from three empirical studies, this work unveils the heterogeneous nature of front-line employees’ (FLEs) corporate brand construals. Our insights contest corporate brand perspectives that assume employees respond to internal branding initiatives in a homogeneous manner. In Study 1, four types of FLEs’ corporate brand...

This study examines the strategic significance of B2B corporate brand image of global logistics corporate brand providers in China offering international express parcel/postage delivery services. Drawing on dual-process theory the research revealed the processing of industrial corporate brand image by managers corresponds to System 1 processing (im...

Drawing on theories of place identity and social identity, this study explicitly aims to make a theoretical contribution vis-à-vis the internal-stakeholders’ cognitions of place identity attitudes, place architecture attitudes, and identification triad. The research was undertaken within a business school at a time when that school had acquired a n...

Purpose Drawing on infrequent purchase and university selection literature, the purpose of this study is to make theoretical contributions to the identification and comprehension of the ‘once-in-a-lifetime purchase’ (OILP) phenomenon. Design/methodology/approach Data derived from in-depth interviews with 34 Taiwanese and 11 Chinese students over t...

Being innovative and adaptive to changing business environment fosters and sustains the success of corporations with heritage. Our article addresses the insights of the innovation strategy of John Lewis Partnership (JLP) as a corporate heritage brand and reveals that strategic innovation the key strand of JLP's brand heritage, which has contributed...

Purpose How organizations view, value and manage their place architecture in relation to identification and corporate identity has received little research attention. The main goal of this paper is to provide an integrative understanding of the relationships between corporate identity, place architecture, and identification from a multi-disciplinar...

This paper studies the corporate heritage brand traits and corporate heritage brand identity by concentrating on developing key dimensions for the corporate heritage brand dimensions in the retailing industry in the UK. This study advances the corporate brand heritage theory and introduces the theory of corporate heritage brand identity which is de...

We argue for a more expansive conceptualization of the past’s relevance in, and for, marketing. Such a differentiated approach to the past is pregnant with possibilities in terms of advancing scholarship apropos temporal agency in marketing along with consumption practices. Symptomatic of this perspective is the increased mindfulness of the rich pa...

This study scrutinizes how places meaningfully burnish corporate brand attractiveness and identification. To date, extant research adopts a mono-lateral, rather than multilateral perspective. Marshalling the corporate brand identification theoretical perspective, the findings make a theoretical advance by explicating how a nascent corporate brand c...

We are pleased to announce that the ICIG Symposium will take place on 4-6 June, 2019. The symposium will be hosted by Professor Xinming He who leads the Marketing and International Business Research Centre at the triple accredited Durham University Business School (DUBS) in association with Professor Balmer of the Marketing & Corporate Brand Resear...

Initial call for papers for the 21st International Corporate Identity Group (ICIG) Symposium which will be held/hosted by the University of Durham Business School, Durham University, England, UK in early June 2019. Paper enables would-be delegates to note dates and to consider transport options. Whilst symposium is traditionally by invitation only,...

This paper adopts the Social Identity theory (SIT: Tajfel and Turner, 1979) to explore different modes of frontline employees’ identification with a corporate brand, and, subsequently, the differences of their cognitive and affective responses to human resources practices as part of internal branding. This paper is comprised of two studies. Study 1...

An important aspect of service employees’ performance is related to their ability to demonstrate brand-congruent behaviour, given that customers’ brand experience is a function of their encounter with them (Akdeniz & Calantone, 2015). An extensive amount of work in the area examines how frontline employees affect customers’ experience with the bran...

The organisers cordially invite scholars (including PhD students) to submit papers which focus on corporate heritage or on corporate heritage related constructs and issues. A wide variety of papers will be welcomed including empirical research, conceptual papers, literature reviews, case studies etc. This year, we particularly welcome papers which...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how young British South Asian adults’ dual cultural identity is exhibited and reaffirmed through the appropriation of selfies. Design/methodology/approach The research adopts a qualitative perspective and utilises a combination of in-depth interviews and netnographic data. Findings The appropriation...

Provides an overview of the life, achievements, jobs, publications, consultancy activities, successes, failures, contribution to the academic literature; personality; personal life of one of the areas foremost consultants in the corporate identity and corporate branding fields

the pre publication of the oxford dictionary of national biography entry on wally olines

Celebrates the achievements of corporate communications pioneer, David Bernstein, who died in August 2017. Often regarded as a father of the corporate communications field his book, "Company Image and Reality", exerted a profound influence on the first wave of corporate communications scholars. He was also celebrated as one of the UK's leading crea...

celebrates the work of david bernstein: a key pioneer of the corporate communications field

On 17th January (2018) the colleagues and friends of the late Dr. Christina Scandelius met in the University’s Chaplaincy Centre for a service of remembrance apropos her life and academic accomplishments. Dr Scandelius was a lecturer-in-marketing and was a member of the marketing and corporate brand research group: she was also a former PhD schola...

This guest editorial for the special edition on corporate brands for the Journal of Product and Brand Management celebrates the formal introduction of the corporate brand notion in the mid-1990s. Since the mid-1990s we note the exponential growth of interest in corporate brands by scholars and practitioners (Balmer, 2010). With its foundations in t...

This chapter from the oxford dictionary of national biography provide what is arguably the most authoritative overview of the life, achievements, and academic/practitioner influence of the legendary English corporate identity/corporate brand consultant Wally (Wallace) Olilns

As a journal focusing on European management issues with a relevance to the global community, this call for papers focusing on corporate brand management is timely. Recent corporate scandals and resultant corporate brand damage relating to Volkswagen (dishonest pollution emission tests in the USA), Apple (illegal use of the University of Wisconsin'...

Purpose This article introduces the special symposium entitled “Advances in corporate brand, corporate heritage, corporate identity and corporate marketing scholarship” and provide a synopsis of the five articles constituting this symposium. By means of context, this article celebrates the anniversaries of four marketing milestones apropos the for...

Abstract Purpose – Introduces the special symposium entitled “Advances in corporate brand, corporate heritage, corporate identity and corporate marketing scholarship” and provides a synopsis of the five articles constituting this symposium. By means of context, celebrates the anniversaries of four marketing milestones apropos the formal introducti...

Abstract Purpose – (a) Introduces a new strategic framework entitled, “The corporate identity, total corporate communications, stakeholders’ attributed identities, identifications and behaviours continuum” and (b) elucidates the central and strategic importance of corporate identity. Design/methodology/approach – Article and framework is informed...

Professor John M.T. Balmer (Professor of Corporate Marketing, Brunel University London) has been invited to write a biography for Wally Olins CBE, the celebrated British corporate identity/branding/naming consultant and writer for the authoritative Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Wallace (Wally) Olins is celebrated for (a) his consultancy...

Adopting an acculturation perspective, this article explicates the duality of young British South Asian adults’ cultural dispositions. In so doing, it examines the complex dialectic processes that influence their acculturation strategies. By using a maximum variation sampling method, respondents from six major cities in Great Britain were interview...

Heritage is increasingly recognised to be a significant corporate concern, with corporate heritage brands and identities often forming an important part of a nation's patrimony. Foundations of Corporate Heritage explains the principles, processes, strategic significance - and challenges - of corporate heritage formation and management. This scholar...

The last two decades have witnessed most major airlines entering into alliances with other carriers. In part, this strategy is seen as an alternative to a formal merger or acquisition. This is because a formal merger or acquisition can be fraught with difficulties. There can be problems relating to national pride1 and in terms of regulatory restrai...

This article advances the brand orientation notion as it applies to corporate brands via the introduction and explication of what the author calls corporate brand orientation. A corporate brand orientation represents a logical development, if not a logical dénouement, of the brand orientation notion introduced by Urde (1994).

At the turn of the millennium, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), after enduring a century of internal travails and centuries of relative commercial decline, sphinx-like, emerged as a pre-eminent economic, mercantile and military, power on the world stage. If the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were the age of the Anglosphere (with nineteenth...

In the 1980s, when China’s so-called bamboo curtain was drawn after the reforms of the country’s Premier Deng Xiamping, not only did the western capitalist notion receive the imprimatur of the Chinese State, but, tellingly, capitalism was enthusiastically embraced by many Chinese individuals.

In this opening section, entitled “Corporate brands in context,” the nature of corporate brands and the fundamentals of corporate brand management are succinctly delineated.

To me, and I would conjecture to a good many other corporate marketing scholars, policymakers and consultants, one of the most exciting, stimulating and intellectually challenging developments in the corporate world since the mid 1990s has been the stupefying ascendancy of corporate brands as a distinctive institutional-identity type. It is an iden...

This study on the Tong Ren Tang (TRT) (同仁堂) traditional Chinese medicine corporate brand marks new ground. This is because, for the first time in the corporate heritage/corporate heritage brand canon, the focus is on a Chinese corporate heritage institution.

ABSTRACT The advent of what we call, ‘The Corporate Marketing Internet Revolution’ necessitates a radical rethinking of marketing practice and scholarship. As such, mindful of the importance of the Internet and, in particular, the Internet of Things (IoT) phenomenon, this article formally introduces and elucidates the Internet of Total Corporate Co...

Professor John M.T. Balmer (Professor of Corporate Marketing, Brunel University London) has been invited to write a biography for Wally Olins CBE, the celebrated British corporate identity/branding/naming consultant and writer for the authoritative Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Wallace (Wally) Olins is celebrated for (a) his consultancy...

The advent of what we call, “The Corporate Marketing Internet Revolution” necessitates a radical rethinking of marketing practice and scholarship. As such, mindful of the importance of the internet, and in particular, the Internet of Things (IoT) phenomena this article formally introduces and elucidates the Internet of Total Corporate Communication...

This prestigious edited collection of articles from the Journal of Brand Management discusses the impact of research on our understanding of corporate brand characteristics and corporate brand management to date. A wide range of topics are covered, including franchise brand management, co-creation of corporate brands, alliance brands, the role of i...

This book includes a fascinating range of up-to-date articles on China from the Journal of Brand Management that marshal research and scholarship undertaken by Chinese, British, European and American scholars. The development and management of brands in China has emerged as an area of considerable and growing interest among branding scholars and pr...

This issue provides an overview of stakeholder theory and corporate identity scholarship marshalling insights from the corporate marketing and corporate communications fields. In examining the corporate identity-stakeholder interface the authors compare and contrast endogeneous and exogenous approaches to the territory. The first, endogeneous and i...

This study focuses on senior management cognitions of corporate brand building within leading (Financial Times-ranked) British business schools. The study reveals stakeholder theory to be highly apposite for corporate brand management and, importantly, confirms the pivotal role of senior managers in terms of corporate brand building and custodiansh...

ABSTRACT Purpose: Examines the attractiveness of the Tong Ren Tang as a Chinese corporate heritage tourism attraction. The study considers the saliency of Balmer’s augmented role identity notion vis-à-vis corporate heritage institutions/corporate brands. The study also applies the literature on nationality and ethnicity owing to this brand’s signif...

Marshaling insights from the corporate marketing and corporate communication fields, this article scrutinizes two prominent - albeit highly contrasting - perspectives relating to the corporate identity and stakeholder interface. The first takes an endogenous and institutional approach: this represents the orthodox and dominant perspective that focu...

F brand building and custodianship. The cognitions of senior business school managers confirmed the orthodox approach to corporate brand building and management where a multidisciplinary, service-focused, strategic-orientated and organizational-wide commitment is stressed. Mitchell et al. (1997) tripartite typology of stakeholders (power, legitimac...

Drawing on the final reflections made at the 17th International Corporate Identity Group (ICIG) Symposium (2014) at Cape Town Business School, six trends emerged from the diverse papers delivered at the symposium: assimilation, bifurcation, contextualisation definitions trends and ethics. These trends reflect the richness as well as the complexity...

This year (2015) marks the 20th Anniversary of the formal introduction and initial explication of the corporate brand notion as expounded in the article, “Corporate Branding and Connoisseurship” published in the Journal of General Management (Balmer 1995). Seemingly, too, this is the first paper that makes explicit reference to corporate brands in...

This revelatory study focuses on top Financial Times (FT) ranked British business school managers cognitions of corporate brand building and management. The study insinuates there is a prima facie bilateral link between corporate branding and strategic direction. Among this genus of business school, the data revealed corporate brand building entail...

The notion of heritage branding orientation is introduced and explicated. Heritage branding orientation is designated as embracing both product and corporate brands and differs from corporate heritage brand orientation which has an explicit corporate focus. Empirical insights are drawn from an in-depth and longitudinal case study of Ach. Brito, a c...

The notion of heritage branding orientation is introduced and explicated. Heritage branding orientation is designated as embracing both product and corporate brands and differs from corporate heritage brand orientation which has an explicit corporate focus. Empirical insights are drawn from an in-depth and longitudinal case study of Ach. Brito, a c...

Drawing from African inspiration, the theme of the seventeenth International Corporate was “The Big Five”. Elephant, buffalo, lion, leopard and the ever-dwindling African rhino population were supplanted with a focus on the scholarly domains of corporate identity, branding, marketing, communication and reputation. Just as the original big five eac...

Purpose: Examines the attractiveness of the Tong Ren Tang (TRT) as a Chinese corporate heritage tourism brand and considers the significance of TRT for Chinese national identity. The study considers the saliency of Balmer’s augmented role identity notion vis-à-vis corporate heritage institutions/corporate brands. Insights are made from and for corp...

This study focuses on senior management cognitions of corporate brand building within leading (Financial Times-ranked) British business schools. The study reveals stakeholder theory to be highly apposite for corporate brand management and, importantly, confirms the pivotal role of senior managers in terms of corporate brand building and custodiansh...

ABSTRACT Drawing on the final reflections made at the seventeenth International Corporate Identity Group Symposium (2014) at Cape Town Business School, five trends emerged from the diverse papers delivered at the symposium: assimilation, bifurcation, contextualisation, denitions and ethics. These trends reect the richness as well as the complexity...

The JBR special issue, “Corporate Heritage, Corporate Heritage Brands, Organizational Heritage, the Past and Omni-Temporality: Theory, Research and Practice” welcomes papers from marketing and other management areas. There are no paradigmatic or methodological preferences but papers should meaningful advance the territory and should be original and...

Recently, considerable academic and management interest has focussed on corporate heritage and, in particular on the corporate heritage brand notion. This article provides a thorough overview of the field and includes latest developments in the territory including the formal introduction of the organisational heritage concept. In this paper the con...

In this article we formally introduce and explicate the organisational heritage notion. The authors conclude organisational heritage can be designated in three broad ways as: (1) organisational heritage identity as the perceived and reminisced omni-temporal traits – both formal/normative and utilitarian/societal – of organisational members’ work or...

BLDSC reference no.: DX195987. Thesis (doctoral)--University of Strathclyde, 1996.