Conceptualising the corporate brand as a socially owned asset: a critical contemplation

Over the past few years, brand reference appears to have declined, dramatically (Schultz and Block 2012; Schultz et al. 2013). Attempts have been made to offset that decline by developing company efforts to build and sustain a trustworthy corporate brand capable of supporting the entire product brand portfolio. In this paper we posit that managing the organization as a corporate brand may help companies differentiate their offerings and therefore regain some of their lost brand preference through enhancing and seeking to expand their social roles.