Adored, respected and coveted by customers and organisations alike, corporate brands represent one of the most fascinating phenomena of the business environment in the 21st century. Their importance is unquestionable. Brands, in their various forms, are integral to our everyday existence. This is particularly the case at the organisational level where the concept of the corporate brand now enjoys wide currency in business parlance. There is an increasing realisation that corporate brands serve as a powerful navigational tool to a variety of stakeholders for a lot of purposes, including employment, investment and, most importantly, consumer buying behaviour.
Corporate branding has been defined by Van Riel (2001, p. 12) as: "a systematically planned and implemented process of creating and maintaining a favourable reputation of the company with its constituent elements, by sending signals to stakeholders using the corporate brand." More