My Research
Retail Corporate Branding:
Corporate brands are an increasingly important element of organisational and marketing strategy. Among the changes that businesses make as they move towards globalisation is a shift in marketing emphasis from product brands to corporate branding. In an era when companies can no longer base their strategy on a predictable market or a stable preferential product range, the ground rules for competition change. Differentiation requires positioning, not of products, but the whole corporation. Accordingly, the values and emotions symbolised by the organisation become key elements of differentiation strategies, and the corporation itself moves center stage.
The proposed research takes a look at the retail corporate branding process and its determinants. The purpose of this research is to identify and study the different constructs of corporate brand management of retailers in the UK.
Given the complex nature of brands and branding, many organisations often fail to consider the role that employees can play in realising a company’s brand strategy. Whether it’s the actual impact on customer service levels or the influence on stakeholder perceptions, employee behaviour impacts on company brand perceptions and ultimately affects the bottom line. As retail sector is more customer services oriented and has more domains for interactions of staff members directly with customers, there is a greater scope of translating and conveying the corporate brand of a retail firm through these interactions.
The proposed research focuses on how the different factors contributing towards the corporate branding of a retailing firm, are strategically aligned and how this alignment is influenced by the performance and interaction of the customer services staff of the retail firm with the customers. The proposed research would identify the different factors that devise the constructs for corporate retail branding. It would identify the different factors that contribute towards the corporate branding of a retail organisation and how do the customer services employees translate and contribute towards the corporate branding of the retail organisation.
In summary, the proposed research would use Vision, Culture and Image as a core research value and build the exploratory research by examining the ‘living the brand’ concept in retail firms and identify further contributors and determinants of retail corporate brand. The proposed research would focus on issues like how consistent are the strategies for corporate brand building in a retail firm translating from top management to ground floor employees.