Corporate Brand as Social Contract

Abstract

This technical note is used at Darden in the Business Communications course and would also work well in Organizational Behavior courses. The role of branding at the corporate level, distinct from product marketing, has evolved to serve as an expression of corporate values. This note surveys current thinking about the ways corporations consider the alignment of brand with the business model and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Excerpt UVA-BC-0244 Rev. Nov. 21, 2013 Corporate Brand as social contract A corporate brand is the most tangible of intangible assets. You can ride an Otis elevator or fly in a plane with Pratt & Whitney jet engines—both made by companies owned by United Technologies Corporation (UTC)—but, to paraphrase its CFO, you cannot hold a UTC. Product brands, franchises of the conglomerate, are seen by managers and consumers as having more brand power than the conglomerate as a whole, which management typically views as significant primarily to Wall Street: less UTC than UTX. Yet for some time, large companies with multiple business units have taken corporate branding quite seriously. Consider IBM from “THINK” to “Smarter Planet” or General Electric (GE) from “We bring good things to life” to “ecomagination.” The more recent of these tag lines are considered particularly deft encapsulations that demonstrate the excellence of these American institutions' corporate communication functions and the commitment their leaders have made to communications as an assertion of corporate values. More Than Just a Promise? . . .