Organisational culture and the creation of brand identity: retail food branding in new markets

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between organizational culture and brand identity in the retail food and beverage industry and also to explore how independent retail coffee shops and cafes build their brands. The evolution of coffee drinking in many new markets is following a pattern similar to the one witnessed in New Zealand.

A qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews, field notes, photographs and empirical material was carried out with 15 independent coffee shops and nine franchise coffee shops in Christchurch, New Zealand. In total five different approaches were adopted to provide diverse observations to compliment every angle of the research setting by using triangulation.

The findings from this research reveal that an appropriate brand name helps to ease the process of brand identity creation. The personality of the market leader strongly influences organizational culture, and a constant flow of updated business intelligence plays an important role in creating a distinctive brand identity. Internal marketing and personal values are key to constructing internal culture while the acculturation process plays an important role in developing internal culture and building brand identity.

Difficulty in getting participants was a major limitation because many employees/owners declined to take part in the research due to the nature of their work which required full attention to serve customers when the outlet is operating.

In previous years, research has focused on interaction between the organization and their customers (Hoeffler, 2003). This study extends previous research by investigating the internal culture of the organization and its relation to brand identity building within the organization.