corporate rebranding and corporate reputation

the hyena as a beautiful, misunderstoodcreature which can and should berebranded. This vignette suggests ananalogy with corporate rebranding.Many companies undergo rebrandingexercises and at least some of these areundertaken in the belief that thecompany in its current guise ismisunderstood in the marketplace. Achange of name and/or logo and sloganis perceived as a strategy which willherald a new beginning for theorganisation, with a marvellous chanceto create a positive new image.

INTRODUCTIONIn a paper by Pickrell1 in Science Newsentitled ‘Rebranding the hyena’, astudy of hyenas by a group ofresearchers from Michigan StateUniversity is presented. One of theresearchers, Kay Holekamp, claimsthat, rather than hyenas being‘slobbering, mangy, stupid scavengers’,they are really ‘highly intelligent withmental abilities and social skills tomatch many a primate’. A review ofthe internet turns up a number ofwebsites that support this new view of

472 � HENRY STEWART PUBLICATIONS 1350-231X BRAND MANAGEMENT VOL. 11, NO. 6, 472–482 JULY 2004

Dr Helen StuartSchool of Business andInformatics, McAuley at BanyoCampus, Australian CatholicUniversity, PO Box 456, Virginia,Brisbane 4014, Queensland,Australia

E-mail: [email protected]

Corporate makeovers: Can a hyenabe rebranded?Received (in revised form): 23rd March, 2004

HELEN STUARTis a lecturer in marketing at the Australian Catholic University in Brisbane. She was previously a lecturer inmarketing and communication at Queensland University of Technology. She attended the first-ever symposium oncorporate identity management in 1994, and has since been researching aspects of corporate identity, image andcommunication. In 1999 she won the prize for the best empirical academic paper in Corporate Reputation Review.She is now on the editorial board of that journal.

LAURENT MUZELLECis a doctoral candidate in marketing at the Smurfit Graduate School of Business, University College Dublin,Ireland. He has previously worked as a product manager for an internet-mapping application company in Parisand as a trade representative at the French Embassy Trade Office in New York. His current research deals withthe corporate rebranding phenomenon and its implications in terms of corporate associations, reputation andultimately corporate performance.

AbstractCorporate rebranding is a strategy used by companies to change their image. There may be verygood reasons for doing this, the most obvious being to send a signal to stakeholders that somethingabout the organisation has changed (for the better). Other less pressing reasons, discussed in thispaper, are, however, also instigators for rebranding. To some extent, a corporate makeover appearsto contradict what has long been regarded as standard marketing practice in product branding, thatis, long-term investment in and commitment to a brand. Despite this, many firms are undertakingcorporate rebranding exercises. The cost of corporate rebranding is very high, running into millionsof dollars in many cases. In this paper, the concept of rebranding is discussed, the motivations forcorporate rebranding are categorised, and the main issues in corporate rebranding in relation torebranding the name, logo and slogan are discussed. Lastly the effectiveness of corporate rebrandingas a corporate strategy is evaluated.

porate rebranding from a revolutionarychange incorporating the three ele-ments of name, logo and slogan, to anevolutionary change, which involvesthe slogan or logo only.

MOTIVATIONS FOR CORPORATEREBRANDINGThe overall stimulus for corporaterebranding is to send a signal tothe marketplace, communicating tostakeholders that something about theorganisation has changed. Therefore itis crucial that the organisation reallydoes have something new to say andthat it is communicated effectively atthe time of the change, otherwise therebranding will fall into what Dowling2

describes as ‘the premature signallingtrap’.

The specific motivations for cor-porate rebranding can be categorisedaccording to the circumstances that ledto the decision to rebrand. The first isfairly obvious — mergers, acquisi-tions and divestitures are pressingreasons to rebrand, as the old names,logos and slogans (if any) are usuallyinappropriate. Hence rebranding isnecessary. Other reasons, however,such as shifts in the marketplacecaused by competitors who havemerged/acquired/divested, new com-petitors, and changed economic orlegal conditions may also create arationale to rebrand the company.It may be that there is a needto present a global image to themarketplace. Another motivation forcorporate rebranding is the feeling thatthe image is outdated. For example,crests have become less popular ascorporate symbols. New abstract logos,however, which appear to be a popularchoice for corporate rebranders, may

Corporate rebranding, however,particularly in cases where an organisa-tion attempts a revolutionary change tothe underlying corporate identity,appears to contradict what has beenregarded as standard marketing practicefor product brands — that is, thatbuilding and maintaining strong brandsover a long time and consistentlysupporting them will result in sales,market share gains and customerloyalty. Additionally, the cost issignificant, even for small changes inthe visual identity, since the costof repainting company livery andretail outlets, printing new stationery,making changes to the website, and soon, must be taken into consideration.

This paper considers the issues in-volved in rebranding, from the initialrationale and motivation, through thevarious decisions that have to be takento implement a decision to rebrand,to the measurement of the rebrandingexercise. Corporate rebranding as astrategy is also evaluated, as are theorganisational issues involved in get-ting the company’s employees andother stakeholders to accept the newbrand.

THE CONCEPT OF REBRANDINGAlthough a dictionary definition of‘rebranding’ might convey the notionof branding performed a second time(the meaning of ‘re’), rebranding incurrent business literature is commonlyused to indicate that the brand isreborn, a slightly different concept. Itcould be argued that this only occurswhen the name itself is changed; how-ever, in this paper the concept ofcorporate rebranding is also associatedwith changes in the logo and slogan.Hence there is a continuum in cor-

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CORPORATE MAKEOVERS: CAN A HYENA BE REBRANDED?

CORPORATE REBRANDING — TYPESOF CHANGESThe types of changes made by cor-porate rebranders fall into three ob-vious categories — name, logo andslogan changes. The permutations pos-sible in corporate rebranding are:

— name plus logo— name plus logo plus slogan— logo only— logo plus slogan— slogan only.

A change in only one of the elementswill result in an evolutionary change tothe brand, whereas at the other ex-treme, the change will be revolution-ary where name, logo and slogan arechanged simultaneously.

The name changeThe name of an organisation is aprimary means by which the organisa-tion communicates to its stakeholders.Changing the name of a company in acorporate rebranding exercise is a riskystrategy, since what is being communi-cated about the organisation changesdramatically.

Margulies4 wrote that for a namechange to be successful, a companyshould have a clear idea of why it isnecessary and what the company ex-pects the results will be. All clichesabout ‘a rose by any other name’ and‘what’s in a name?’ aside, one journalistasserted that ‘Nearly all name changesare bad . . . A new name is nevergoing to suit an existing company’.5

Therefore, in changing the name, it isimportant to at least strive for some-thing better rather than fall into the‘mediocre name change trap’.6 Thenew name should reflect either the

be much less conspicuous, as it isdifficult for the symbol to stand outfrom the crowd. Additionally, abstractsymbols are often criticised and, insome cases, ridiculed.

Another apparently compellingreason for corporate rebranding is anew focus or vision for the company,which could be caused by some or allof the factors discussed previously, butwhich may also be due to theappearance of a new CEO who wantsto make a mark, since the reputation ofthe CEO has a significant bearing onthe reputation of the company. Thiswas the case with British Airways,where Ayling tried to distance theairline from its parochial English pastwith the disastrous ethnic tailfins. AsBrierley3 suggested in his newspaperarticle, new CEOs arrive like knightsin shining armour, determined to maketheir mark. This nearly always involvesmaking changes to the outwardappearance of the company byrebranding, while more difficultstructural problems are neveraddressed.

A final reason for corporate rebrand-ing is to distance the organisation fromits social and moral baggage, and topresent a new more socially responsibleimage, as was the case when PhillipMorris, Inc. became Altria. In thepresent climate, emphasis on the cor-porate social performance of organisa-tions is growing, and it may be thatmore corporate rebranding efforts aredirected towards this end; however,few companies emphasise their cor-porate social responsibility agenda aspart of the rebranding exercise.

The types of corporate rebranding,along the continuum from revolu-tionary to evolutionary, are nextdiscussed.


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bring myself to say it. Now it trips offmy tongue and I hardly cringe at all.’9

A variation on the coined name isthe use of Latin and Greek words toadd to the mystique. The name ‘Altria’,which derives from the Latin word‘altus’, meaning high, and apparentlysuggesting an enterprise that aimsfor peak performance and constantimprovement,10 is one example of thiscategory. Other new corporate namessuch as ‘Novartis’ and ‘Advantis’ arealso representative of this category. Thedesire to build global corporate brandshas led to the creation of somewhatdisconnected corporate names thatrepresent values common to any cor-poration (ie performance, innovation,respect and dynamism). This is ratherparadoxical as corporate brands aresupposed to represent a ‘unique selec-tion of attributes and personality’.11

Dowling12 wrote that askingemployees to name the company mightantagonise them since ‘many of thelosers may feel disappointed’. However,consultation with employees isimperative as, in some cases, theemployees are the last to hear about thecorporate rebranding. It is also importantto consider employees as keystakeholders in a name change as theiridentification with the new name will becritical. A case in point is the AustralianDepartment of Social Security, whichrebranded to become Centrelink. Agreeting of ‘Hello, Santalink’ (a badpronunciation of ‘Centrelink’) wasconfusing at Christmas time. Obviously,employees need to be trained topronounce the new coined namecorrectly. Additionally, employeessometimes have strong attachments tothe old name, and have been known tostore memorabilia from the previousorganisation in their desks.

corporate personality of the companyor the raison d’etre7 — unlike ‘Mon-day’, which was supposed to reflect thesmell of fresh coffee and doughnuts.

It is difficult in the case of mergersto find a satisfactory name since allcompanies usually want their name leftin some form, and this can result in along and unwieldy name. Usually thedominant partner in the merger be-comes the first name mentioned inthe combined name. This often be-comes the company name after acouple of years, as was the casewith Suncorp Metway, an Australianbank/insurance company, which laterdropped the Metway part of the name.It would seem far less expensive tochange the name immediately but,apart from the negative reaction ofexternal stakeholders such as customersand shareholders of Metway, employeesof the no-longer-named company mayhave experienced low morale (al-though they probably knew who wasthe major player in the merger when itwas formed). A temporary appease-ment of merger fears is expensive inthe long run, however.

One solution to the new namedilemma is to brainstorm names orgenerate them via a computer andcome up with a name that is a newword, as was the case with Primerica.8

This strategy worked, although theinitial insistence by the company’sCEO that the new name shouldinclude the letter ‘x’ could havenegatively affected the result. ‘Accen-ture’, a coined name, which connotesaccent or emphasis on the future, wasthe result of employees being asked tosubmit names. As Kellaway notes, thiswas an example of an organisation thatgrew into its name. ‘When I first heardthe name ‘‘Accenture’’ I could not



of journalists may be a better re-search sample since their opinions tendto dominate news reports after therebranding event. Of significance is theseeming reluctance of consultants toensure that stakeholder groups withpower and legitimacy are canvassed fortheir views.14

It may be tempting to abbreviate thename of the organisation by shorten-ing the name to the initials. Thiswas recently done at the AustralianCatholic University, now ‘ACU Na-tional’. The rebranding was carriedout in order for the university to berecognised as national, public and lastlyCatholic in tradition, to compete moreeffectively in a deregulated environ-ment. The old unabbreviated name is,however, still used, and when the ab-breviated name is used the question isinvariably asked, ‘What’s ACU?’.

The abbreviation and national namechange strategies were identified aspotentially hazardous by Dowling15 fortwo reasons. The first is what he called‘the alphabet soup name trap’, and thesecond is ‘the national name trap’. Hewrote that unless the stakeholdersshorten the name naturally, they willsee no advantage, will not use theinitials and may not know what theystand for. The national role must beclear to stakeholder groups.

To summarise, the research des-cribed above indicates that new namesdeveloped for corporate rebrandingprogrammes are increasingly ‘clever’names, such as coined words and Latinor Greek names, that apparently add tothe mystique of the organisation.While some of these names have beensuccessful, others have been foundto be difficult to pronounce foremployees and stakeholders alike, andthe relevance of the name to the

In contrast to more successful coinednames, ‘Consignia’ lasted only a shorttime before it was decided to go backto the original ‘Royal Mail’, whichdescribed the company exactly in thesame way that the name ‘AustralianDepartment of Social Security’ didbefore the change. The new name —‘Centrelink’ — has become a nameassociated with governmental gaffes,with pensioners being asked to repaymoney as a result of the mistakes. Itseems easier to ridicule or down-grade the reputation of a govern-ment organisation that has changed itsname to something that does notreflect its national and public role.Another Australian example of this wasthe name change of the NationalFilm and Sound Archive (NFSA) to‘ScreenSound Australia: The NationalCollection of Screen and Sound’,primarily to update the image andincrease its marketing potential —again moving away from its sig-nificance as a community institution.In this case the name change becamea symbol of the division betweenstakeholder groups. Edmondson,13 inwriting about the rebranding, sug-gests that the wrong stakeholderswere canvassed for their views. Thestakeholder groups to whom the namemattered were academics, collectors,producers, students, actors, writers,clients and professionals, giving themmoral ownership of the name, yet theywere not surveyed.

Researching the effectiveness of thepotential name can be a difficult task.Which group or groups of stakeholdersshould be canvassed is an importantquestion. Consumers or the generalpublic can give misleading results,as their interest in the organisationmay be ephemeral. A focus group


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none of the ‘group of eight’ leadingAustralian universities (the universitiesof Adelaide, Melbourne, New SouthWales, Queensland, Sydney, WesternAustralia, Australian National Univer-sity and Monash) have changed theirlogo from a crest to an abstract design.Again, there is a trend for publicinstitutions to distance themselves fromtheir public role by changing fromcrests to abstract designs to givethemselves a marketing edge.

Dowling17 referred to ‘the cosmeticidentity change trap’. If there is noapparent reason for the logo change,it will either go unnoticed (whichis hardly cost-effective), or will beregarded with suspicion. Balmer, in apersonal communication, described afavourite example of this — theRoyal National Institute for the Blindchanged its logo, but this probablyhad little impact on the primarystakeholders.

For a more detailed treatment ofwhat makes a logo high in recogni-tion, see Henderson and Cote.18 Theresults of their empirical researchwere that high-recognition logos werevery natural, very harmonious andmoderately elaborate. Logos that arehighly abstract would not fit into thiscategory, nor would single-colour ones.These results may be somewhat mis-leading as an organisation with a largebudget and an abstract symbol caneducate stakeholders using classicalconditioning to gain high recognitionof its logo, as is the case withMcDonald’s.

If the reason for the logo change isthat the organisation has changed itsname, then it is obviously important tohave a new logo. If, however, it isabout changing the logo to an abstractdesign to be more up to date and

organisation’s positioning and the busi-ness they are in is often a deepermystery. Additionally, public organisa-tions that adopt such names may facethe devaluing of their important role asan organisation that services the com-munity.

The logo changeIn relation to changes in the logo,abstract symbols are popular, althoughthey are generally explained as relat-ing to the company in some way,either by the colours, the shapes orboth. As Napoles16 wrote, finding agood abstract design that stands outfrom the crowd, gives the appear-ance of power, evokes a strong posi-tive emotional response and a sense ofexperience, confidence and tradition,is difficult to achieve. Recently, theQueensland Government changed itslogo from a crest to a rather abstractdesign which is meant to reflect anindigenous shield, the Queensland sun-shine and state’s rich diversity, but tomany it simply looks like a roundmaroon object with yellow comingout of it. The problem with abstractdesigns is that although the designer iscertain of the significance and meaningof the symbol, it is ‘lost in transla-tion’.

The trend to change from a crestto an abstract logo is also seenin Australian universities, althoughuniversities in the UK are similar inthis respect. For example, ManchesterUniversity Business School in the UKrebranded to an abstract design. GriffithUniversity in Queensland has changedfrom the crest to an abstract design ofa book. Yet it could be argued that, inthe university setting at least, a crest isassociated with quality, and significantly



Union (CU) to Commercial andGeneral Union (CGU) and then toCommercial and General NorwichUnion (CGNU). The latter name andacronym is obviously clumsy, difficultto remember and fairly meaningless, soa new name, ‘Aviva’, was created withthe slogan ‘We are a brand newcompany with 300 years of history’.The motto is in fact an attempt toreconcile two apparently contradictorynotions, which are first that the newcompany is the synthesis of long-established corporations and, secondly,that the merger represents a newdeparture.

In brief, slogan changes can be usefulif it is thought that the old slogan doesnot reflect the positioning of the or-ganisation adequately, but again ‘clever’slogans may be ridiculed and will thenneed to be changed again. Keeping thepresent slogan if it does reflect thepositioning is better than risking adopt-ing a new slogan that may be perceivedby stakeholders as an indication thatthe organisation does not understand itsidentity.

As stated at the beginning of thepaper, rebranding is costly. The nextsection considers the costs relative tothe performance in corporate rebrand-ing.

COST AND PERFORMANCE OFCORPORATE REBRANDINGAn advertising campaign can prove tobe extremely expensive, but it is aminor cost when calculating the to-tal cost of a change of identity.BearingPoint (formerly KPMG Con-sulting) listed the different elementsthat had to be changed simultaneouslyin all its offices around the world onthe day of its official rebirth: ticker

modern, then care should be exercised.If the new logo does not really sym-bolise the organisation, or if the sym-bolism is not clear to stakeholders, thenthe value is questionable.

The slogan changeWhereas an excellent slogan can makea company or organisation, a bad or asilly slogan can undermine it. Jour-nalists are only too happy to pounce ona slogan and subject it to ridicule. Theslogan ideally reflects the positioningstrategy of the corporate brand, but itis difficult to find one that will resonatewith stakeholders in a world alreadycrowded with slogans. Changing theslogan can be done frequently with lessrisk than a name or logo change,although changing the slogan changesthe positioning of the organisation.While Queensland University of Tech-nology has been able to position itselfvery effectively with ‘A university forthe real world’ in a time whenjobs appear scarce, the Universityof Queensland has adopted differentslogans for its advertising campaignseach year. Griffith University hasrecently embraced ‘Get smarter’ forits present advertising campaign. Theuniversity has used luminaries such asBob Geldof, Rueben Carter, RayCharles and, most recently, Kim Phuc(the girl in the photo on 8th June,1972, that arguably changed the courseof the war in Vietnam) to project animage of a university that has equityand social justice as core values. Theslogan does not reflect this position-ing.

The slogan change is sometimes agreat help to introduce the newname. For instance, two consecutivemergers took the group Commercial


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structure and complete its initial publicoffering on the market.22

SUCCESS OR FAILURE OFREBRANDINGIt is very difficult to measure thesuccess or the failure of a rebranding.As the motivations as discussed abovevary, so do the goals. Therefore eachcorporate rebranding should ideally beevaluated with regards to its initialgoals. Regardless of the lack ofmeasurement procedures, companiesare quick to attribute strongerperformance to their rebrandingdecisions. For instance, France Telecomannounces on its website that‘Orange Netherlands contributed posi-tive operating income before deprecia-tion and amortisation for the first time,at c29m, up from negative c14m inH1 2002, driven by a successfulrestructuring and rebranding process.’23

Accenture would certainly considerits rebranding successful; its newname made a direct entry as the53rd most valuable brand in theworld (worth US$5.8bn) in the2002 Interbrand/Business Week specialreport on global brands. This achieve-ment was greeted with the followingcomment: ‘In the light of the formerparent Arthur Andersen’s fate, theAccenture branding initiative looks likesheer brilliance.’24

Nevertheless, a rebranding exerciseis generally received with far lessenthusiasm, and sometimes a great dealof sarcasm. A close look at papersridiculing the name change of the PostOffice (Consignia), PwC Consulting(Monday), CGNU (Aviva), ScottishPower (Thus) and KPMG Consulting(BearingPoint) would certainly helpmanagers to measure the failure of

symbol changed to BE on the NewYork Stock Exchange; a uniformglobal website (and adaptation of localwebsites); 16,000 new business cardsprinted and 16,000 e-mail addresseschanged; 500 signs replaced in 200offices; and 20,000 launch announce-ment packages sent to clients andassociates.19 Altogether, its renamingand rebranding initiative is reportedto have cost between US$20m andUS$35m.20

It does not just cost to promote thenew brand, however; it also costs tobury the old one. Since the mid-1980s,the concept of brand name equity doesnot solely appear in academic publica-tions — brand name equity is anactual asset, to which accountants as-sign a value on the company’s balancesheet. Therefore, when UBS decidedto scrap two well-known brands, S.G.Warburg and PaineWebber, in an ef-fort to promote a global and uniqueUBS brand, the Swiss company alsotook an approximate US$770m non-cash charge, that being the value atwhich the two brands were carried onits balance sheet.21

Finally, a last category of costs arehidden or opportunity costs, whichare the costs implied by keepingemployees doing things necessary tothe rebranding, but diverting themfrom their everyday job. For in-stance, in the quarterly earnings reportfollowing its rebranding, Accenturereported a fourth-quarter loss of nearlyUS$370m. This was apparently due tocosts associated with changing its namefrom ‘Andersen Consulting’ and tran-sitioning to a public company. Itincluded rebranding costs of US$13mto rename the company, and reor-ganisation charges of US$58m tocomplete its transition to a corporate



tion. A change initiated by a CEO or aperceived need to update the image isoften an ill-considered change.

The second question is ‘Exactly whatis being signalled?’. If the new CEOwants to change the organisation andbelieves that corporate rebranding is theanswer, then it is bound to happen.Although there are enough examplesout there to suggest that while corporaterebranding can be the beginning of anew era, it can also be a risky strategy forthe CEO if it does not work, as BobAyling discovered. A more effective sig-nal is one where the change is driven byinternal factors as well as external ones. Isit a fundamental change or just windowdressing of the most extravagant kind?

The third question is ‘Are the keystakeholders cognisant and positiveabout the change?’. As Machiavelliwrote, change is only weakly sup-ported and often violently opposed.Key stakeholders are those who havepower and legitimacy, not just a passinginterest in the organisation. The role ofemployees is also often overlooked inthese corporate rebranding exercises.Their loyalty to the old name and logomay be underestimated.

The fourth question is ‘What will bethe reaction of my competitors to thischange, or is the organisation merelyreacting to competitor changes in cor-porate branding?’. While one companyis spending on corporate rebranding,competitors may be focusing on fun-damentals such as relationship market-ing and making profits which will notbe eaten away by the cost of rebrand-ing and burying the old name.

The ‘no rebrand’ rationaleSome time ago it was found that famili-arity with a brand led to favourability

some rebranding exercises — at least interms of public relations.25–29

A RATIONAL APPROACH TOCORPORATE REBRANDINGAs Ind30 remarked, ‘Consistency is avirtuous circle.’ Therefore, if pos-sible, organisations must think carefullyabout corporate rebranding, and if theycannot be consistent when rebranding,at least they should think aboutcontinuity issues. In making changes tothe corporate brand of an organisation,continuity and consistency are keynotions to bear in mind. Research is avital part of the process of change, as iscreativity in designing names, logosand slogans. The rational and emo-tional must work in unison to achievea satisfactory result. Research beforeand after a name, logo and/or sloganhave been devised is vital.

A mistake commonly made byorganisations is to see corporaterebranding as primarily a marketingcommunication exercise. Even if theorganisation is also making strategicchanges, it is often the case that theresults are judged on the effectiveness ofthe external planned communicationcampaign. This is a short-term measure.A number of issues need to be raisedbefore launching into an expensivecorporate rebranding exercise, and it issuggested that the following questionsneed to be addressed.

The first is ‘What will happen if wedon’t make this change?’. If the answeris ‘not much’ then there may not be ajustification for it, or worse the com-pany may fall into the mediocre changetrap. Perhaps the fundamentals of theorganisation need to be examined todetermine whether the change will bean effective strategy for the organisa-


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Perhaps the best strategy for a com-pany that is considering rebranding is todisregard the notion temporarily, andfirst investigate what it is that the com-pany needs to do to succeed in itsmarketplace in terms of how to sustaina competitive advantage. A change invisual identification cannot do this andwill be an expensive exercise if it fails.

CONCLUSIONCorporate rebranding is expensive andtime–consuming, and there appear tobe more failures than successes as thenumber of corporate rebranding exer-cises increases. As discussed in thispaper there is a sound motivation forcorporate rebranding, and that is tosend a clear signal to the marketplacethat the organisation has changed forthe better. As corporate rebranding hasbecome more popular and has beenused as a strategy to change somethingabout the organisation instead, morespectacular corporate rebranding ex-amples can be found, however. Look-ing at the organisation holistically andconsidering the possible impact on theother identities of the organisationwould be a powerful place to startany corporate rebranding exercise. Amarketing communication approach isinsufficient to change strategy. Con-sider the rebranding of the hyena —any amount of corporate rebranding,including a marketing communicationprogramme will not convince thepublic that it is a nice, caring creatureuntil its behaviour changes.

References(1) Pickrell, S. (2002) ‘Rebranding the hyena’,

Science News, Vol. 161, 27th April, pp.267–270.

(2) Dowling, G. (1996) ‘Corporate identitytraps’, Australian Graduate School of

in relation to brands.31 Therefore, inthe minds of many stakeholders, cor-porate rebranding does not necessarilylead to a more favourable companyimage, but rather to dislike of change(as Machiavelli indicated) and possiblysuspicion about the change. Addition-ally, stakeholders often find out aboutthe enormous cost of the campaign andare infuriated by what they perceive asan unnecessary expense, particularly inthe face of other company cutbacks. Atthe time of the British Airways ethnictailfin rebranding exercise, British Air-ways cabin crew went on strike inprotest against a cost-cutting exercise of£1bn, annoyed that such a profitableairline should make such cutbacks andyet spend so much on rebranding. Atrade union spokesman pointed out thatit was the staff who were important, nota new system of visual identification.British Airways lost £125m as a resultof the strike.32

Visual changes in a company areoften about ‘trappings’ rather than ‘sub-stance’.33 Balmer34 explores this ideafurther using his AC3ID test of multipleidentities, examining cases where thereis a lack of alignment between actual,communicated and other identities. Hisview is that the corporate brand is onlyone of six identities of the organisa-tion. It is the covenanted identity.(The other identities are the actual,conceived, communicated, ideal anddesired.) Changing the corporate brandcan potentially result in a lack ofalignment between this and other iden-tities within the organisation. This dis-continuity needs to be considered ashaving a possible negative impact on therebranding exercise. This seems to be atestament for the whole organisation tobe involved in the corporate rebrandingexercise.



bearingpoint.com/news/press_kit.html,accessed 6th March, 2003.

(20) Dunham, K. J. (2002) ‘KPMG ConsultingInc. picks BearingPoint for its new name’,Wall Street Journal, 3rd October, p. B.10.

(21) Tomkins, R. (2002) ‘The true cost ofdropping names’, Financial Times, London,14th November, p. 21.

(22) Anonymous (2001) ‘One-time charges fuelfourth-quarter loss for Accenture’,Accounting Today, Vol. 15, No. 19, p. 42.

(23) France Telecom (2003) ‘Orange announcesstrong performance in first half 2003’, pressrelease 29th July, http://www.francetelecom.com/en/financials/journalists/press_releases/CP_old/cp030729-2-orange.html, accessed20th September, 2003.

(24) Khermouch, G. (2002) ‘The best globalbrands’, Business Week, No. 3794, 5thAugust, p. 92.

(25) Brook, S. (2002) ‘Pitfalls of rebranding’,Financial Times, 3rd October, p. 15.

(26) Dickson, M. (2002) ‘Aviva arriva’, FinancialTimes, 24th April, p. 20.

(27) Kellaway, ref. 5 above.(28) Lamont, J., Mallet, V. and Odell, M. (2003)

‘Name game threatens Thales’, FinancialTimes, 21st January.

(29) McGurk, H. (2002) ‘Is brand new always agood move for companies?’, News Letter,2nd July, p. 6.

(30) Ind, ref. 11 above.(31) Worcester, R. M. (1986) ‘Corporate

image’, in Worcester, R. M. andDownham, J. (eds) ‘Consumer MarketResearch Handbook’, McGraw-Hill,London, UK, pp. 601–666.

(32) Ashworth, J. (2000) ‘Writing was on thewall for Ayling’, The Times, 11th March,p. 8.

(33) Baker, M. J. and Balmer, J. M. T. (1997)‘Visual identity: Trappings or substance?’,European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 31, Nos5/6, pp. 366–382.

(34) Balmer, J. M. T. and Greyser, S. A. (2003)(Eds) ‘Revealing the corporation:Perspectives on identity, image reputation,corporate branding and level-levelmarketing’, Routledge, London, UK.

Management Working Paper Series, Universityof New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.

(3) Brierley, S. (2002) ‘The cult of the managerand the rise of stupidity’, Marketing Week,London, 15th August, p. 23.

(4) Margulies, W. (1977) ‘Make the most ofyour corporate identity’, Harvard BusinessReview, July/August, pp. 66–77.

(5) Kellaway, L. (2002) ‘Beyond parody: PwC’srebranding exercise is demoralising foremployees and satirists alike’, FinancialTimes, London, 17th June, p. 12.

(6) Dowling, ref. 2 above.(7) Ibid.(8) Klein, N. and Greyser, S. A. (1992)

‘Primerica Corporation: How AmericanCan Discovered Primerica’, HarvardBusiness School case 588–066 in Greyser, S.A. (ed.) ‘Cases in Advertising andCommunications Management’ (3rd edn),Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.

(9) Kellaway, ref. 5 above.(10) altria.com, http://www.altria.com/

about_altria/01_01_corpidenchange.asp,accessed 10th September, 2003.

(11) Ind, N. (1997) ‘The Corporate Brand’,Macmillan Press Ltd, London, UK.

(12) Dowling, ref. 2 above.(13) Edmondson, R. (2002) ‘A case of mistaken

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(14) Mitchell, R. K., Agle, B. R. and Wood, D.J. (1997) ‘Towards a theory of stakeholderidentification and salience: Defining theprinciple of who and what really counts’,Academy of Management Review, Vol. 22, No.4, pp. 853–886.

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Design’, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York,NY.

(17) Dowling, ref. 2 above.(18) Henderson, P. W. and Cote, J. A. (1998)

‘Guidelines for selecting or modifyinglogos’, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 62, No. 2,pp. 14–30.

(19) bearingpoint.com, http://www.


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corporate rebranding and corporate reputation

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