An interpretive enquiry into CEO personal branding on social media

Social media has altered the corporate communication environment. Organisations have put their CEOs on social media to build corporate brand image whilst creating a strong personal brand. However, creating a personal brand online is complicated and problematic, especially when the personal brand serves various stakeholders. While CEOs become recognised as a brand, there has been limited insight into how a CEO personal brand can be crafted and how it impacts stakeholders. Furthermore, CEOs are regarded as a core presentation of the corporate brand. Thus, it is important to understand how CEO personal brand affects the corporate brand. To address these questions, this study adopted a multi-method research, combining qualitative in-depth interviews with netnography, in an attempt to gain understanding of CEO personal brand from both CEOs’ and stakeholders’ perspectives. The findings indicate key CEO characteristics and employee involvement as pre-requisite to developing a CEO personal brand. Also, by bridging corporate branding and online personal branding literature, this study illustrates how a CEO personal brand influences corporate brand image, employee advocacy and consumer loyalty

Political brand identity: an examination of the complexities of Conservative brand and internal market engagement during the 2010 UK General Election campaign

This paper seeks to build an understanding of the importance of internal communications when building a strong political brand. Using Kapferer’s brand prism as a conceptual framework, the paper explores UK Conservative Party members’ attitudes towards the development of the Conservative brand as personified by David Cameron. There are clear implications for political strategists as the findings suggest that it is crucial to engage the internal market in the co-creation of the marketing communications strategy for as brand evangelists they interpret the brand promise at the local level

Exploring the influences of internal branding on employees' brand promise delivery: Implications for strenthening the customer-brand relationships

Internal branding is increasingly seen as a doctrine to ensure employees' delivery of the brand promise by shaping employees' brand attitudes and behaviours. However, few studies, if any, have been conducted to understand the internal branding process from the viewpoint of employees who are the end receivers. Therefore, this study aims at exploring employees' perceptions toward the internal branding process. It identifies the relevant mechanisms and describes how internal branding affected service employees. The challenges of its success are uncovered and discussed. Finally, managerial implications and future research directions are provided

The role of internal branding in the delivery of employee brand promise

In branding literature, the employee role is recognised as crucial in delivering the service as promised by the brand. A plethora of existing insights have been gained through practitioners' and customers' perspectives. Little empirical research has been undertaken with employees. Therefore, this study aims to reveal their perceptions towards their role and the techniques that enable them to fulfil the brand promise. A case-study approach is adopted using a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methodologies. In-depth interviews reveal that employees feel that their actions are vital to the brand, and findings from a survey of 699 respondents demonstrate positive relationships among internal branding instruments and their brand promise delivery. These tools influence the employees' brand attitudes, namely brand identification, brand commitment and brand loyalty. Ultimately, these attitudes also influence the manner in which employees deliver the service. Therefore, internal branding not only directly influences the extent to which employees perform their role in relation to the brand promise, but also influences the attitudes employees have towards the brand, which in turn affects employee performance