Revealing the Corporation. Perspectives on Identity, Image, Reputation, Corporate Branding and Corporate‐level Marketing

Citation

Hoványi DSc, G. (2004), "Revealing the Corporation. Perspectives on Identity, Image, Reputation, Corporate Branding and Corporate‐level Marketing", European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 38 No. 5/6, pp. 722-724. https://doi.org/10.1108/03090560410529312

First impression: a rich and warm auditorium as cover image, deep purple colouring with gold and lights, in front a heavy velvet curtain and on the parquet rows of comforable but empty seats. After turning the first leaves of the volume (that is to say the book's “curtain” has risen) it turns out that there is much light in its content, the atmosphere is warm and friendly for experts, as well as for the more or less unexperienced readers in the topic of Revealing a Corporation, and the rows of seats are full with bright contributors – i.e. leading professionals of the western world who wrote once the most remarkable essays reproduced now on the “stage”. And when turning the last leaves of the book: final applause for the two stage managers, namely, the two professors who selected and interpreted the fascinating performance.

The anthology selected and interpreted by Professors Balmer and Greyser deals with a topic which already is of vital importance and will be more and more decisive in the near, as well as in the distant, future for the global competitiveness of corporations: namely their products and services tend to become more and more similar and therefore the corporations' intangibles have now, and will have also in the future, a dominant role in gaining competitive advantage on the home as well as on the global market. One of the most efficient “chain of intangibles” is the topic of the present anthology: the chain which starts with the well‐shaped corporate identity and ends up with the characteristics and benefits of corporate branding.

The structure of the anthology follows a strict logical concept and is therefore really convincing: the first element of the chain of intangibles includes the general problems of managing the multiple(!) identities of a modern corporation (Section One of the volume); this is followed by essays about the identity as quintessence of an organization (Section Two); the next problem area is that of corporate communication: a dimension of corporate meaning (Section Three); Section Four deals with the particularities of corporate image and reputation; this is followed by the contribution of the corporate brand to the firm's competitiveness (Section Five); and the train of thought is completed with a case study and an Epilogue indicating the future chances and tasks of the presented chain of intangibles. Each section and in the frame of the sections each “chapter” (i.e. the essay published originally in one of the most acknowledged professional journals) has an editors’ commentary and is followed by a list of further readings.

The selection of the 15 reprinted essays serves – it seems – three basic purposes:

1. 1.

   The essays have to reveal the basic characteristics, problems and benefits of the individual elements of the mentioned chain of intangibles – which sometimes must be unknown, even to professionals working day by day in the given field.

2. 2.

   The “chapters” prove that the elements of the chain – if their content is well coordinated, i.e. the features of the last element are strictly based on the contents of the former ones – exert valuable synergy in the significant increase of corporation's competitiveness – and requiring only a restricted amount of resources.

3. 3.

   The essays emphasize that the ultimate responsibility to create this chain of intangibles and supervise its smooth functioning is the duty of the corporation's CEO.

All these fundamental concepts are presented not only as theoretical statements, but are supported also by many examples of achievements or failures on the level of corporations' everyday practice.

The editors' many commentaries help to find the right way to implement these three basic purposes, not only by referring to the decisive characteristics and inherence of the selected essays but also by pointing to some controversial authors' statements. This also means that the commentaries help the reader to be acquainted with the recent “state of the art” of the profession. Last but not least, all readers – including the already convinced and experienced CEOs, as well the practitioners working in the narrower fields of the revelation of a corporation, e.g. in the shaping of the corporation's image or in the planning of the corporate brand's particularities – will find many new ideas in the commentaries which are often individual essays in themselves.

In the final section of the anthology, the Epilogue deals with problem of “beyond the age of innocence”, stressing that the importance of revealing the corporation will be – as mentioned before – a more and more crucial task for the competitors on the global scene. In that context, the Epilogue emphasizes that the “anthology marks (only( a move away from simplicity to complexity … a move from adolescence to adulthood … a move beyond the age of innocence”. To sign the directions of this move, the editors enumerate many convincing concepts and techniques. (I have to mention that parts of the Epilogue have been published first in the European Journal of Marketing.) But let me make – after my sincere ovation for all the above – two additional remarks.

First, I firmly believe that in the frame of the chain of intangibles, more emphasis than is indicated in the Epilogue should be laid in the future on topics like revealing the corporation in the different conditions of globalization, in cluster‐organizations, in corporations having a horizontal or vertical BU‐structure; on characteristic differences of the chain of intangibles in different geographic areas and cultures; on the problem of fitting in of the communication requirements, actors and techniques of the chain of intangibles into the complex communication task and techniques of corporations; on the core competence, core values, firm identity, firm image, communication and branding problems of SMEs, etc.

Second, I fully agree with the suggestion of the Epilogue that our future will justify and even enforce the concept and implementation of the idea of corporate‐level marketing. But I think marketing in the future will be also a characteristic function of a company, a philosophy of top management, an attitude of the whole firm – and it will have also some specific requirements in respect of individuals (managers and their co‐workers), all members of the marketing departments. Therefore I am afraid that to qualify corporate‐level marketing as an “umbrella title of this new area of managment” is an exaggeration. Think, for example, on the borderless transfer of product and technology innovations between the traditional branches of industries, on the sometimes hectic and even catastrophic flows of capital on the international scene, which are stimulated only by speculations, on the abundant factors influencing unexpected growths or recessions in economies: company management has to reckon with these and similar events – but I hardly think that marketing would be prepared to reveal, treat and analyse all these “background factors” of our embarrassing modern world.

Finally I have to stress again: we have definitely to applaud that the “curtain rose” so we could participate in this all‐embracing, deep, engaging and enjoyable performance – thanks to the famous authors of the essays, as well as to the incontestable and well‐proved competence of the two editors. I am sure that in the near future “all seats of the auditorium” will be full with keenly interested readers.