بازسازی نام های تجاری (برند) شرکت جامعه: رویکرد مشارکت ذینفعان

Can community organizations benefit from corporate rebranding? The literature shows that rebranding in the not-for-profit sector flounders for two major reasons. The first is the failure to develop robust and ambitious revisioning of the brand, and the second, failure to get sufficient buy-in from staff and other stakeholders, often because of imposed top–down brand changes. The current study aims to guide an organization through an actual rebranding process, using best practice corporate rebranding principles and practices. Action research is a novel research method to investigate not-for-profit corporate rebranding. This method guides a systematic and dynamic corporate rebranding process, embracing multiple stakeholder groups. A major achievement is the articulation of a values-based corporate rebrand, with grounding in actual brand experiences. Active involvement throughout the co-redevelopment of the corporate brand achieves total stakeholder buy-in. The action research process requires researchers to guide the rebranding process, while stakeholders guide the content of the rebranding.

Many community organizations operate in highly volatile environments where competition for resources, employees, clients and donors is prevalent. Can community organizations exploit the principles and practices of corporate rebranding available in the business sector to improve their positions? In particular, can such organizations fulfill their potential and optimize both monetary and social brand benefits? The idea of revitalizing brands has its roots in product branding (Berry, 1988). The shifting of focus from product branding to corporate branding has led to research on corporate reputation and brand identity (Balmer, 2001 and Balmer, 2010). A further stream of research is the burgeoning work on corporate branding, which has spread as a dominant business strategy particularly in large firms over the past decade (de Chernatony, 2001, Hatch and Schultz, 2003, Knox and Bickerton, 2003, Melewar and Walker, 2003 and Schultz and Hatch, 2003). More recently, corporate rebranding is emerging as an extension of the corporate branding domain and is evolving that field by embracing the concepts of corporate branding and advancing specific principles of corporate rebranding (Gotsi and Andriopoulos, 2007, Gotsi et al., 2008, Merrilees, 2005 and Merrilees and Miller, 2008). A small field of research is tackling the question of branding not-for-profit, charity and social organizations, termed in this paper, community organizations. This umbrella term is convenient but masks the complexity and diversity of the sector. The emerging literature (e.g. Hankinson, 2000 and Mort et al., 2007) provides insights but no consensus to date. Many community brands grapple with positioning and marketing issues generally (Grounds and Griffiths, 2005, Kennedy, 1998 and Lindsay and Murphy, 1996), often considering them subservient to broader social goals. Consequently, branding is not usually a major concern of community brands, though this situation is changing as community brands compete more with each other for a limited pool of funds. Salient characteristics of community brands include a values rather than value basis for the organization; multiple stakeholders creating conflicting needs; and issues with staff morale or effectiveness as the employees are usually not well paid. Such characteristics create a branding dialectic, with both positive and negative forces emanating. However, the rebranding of such organizations has yet to form a significant research concentration. The focus of this paper is the possibility of creating an exemplar community brand by taking an existing, moderate strength corporate brand and revitalizing that brand. Vignette 1 presents the pre-rebranding organization. The study uses an action research, case study framework, with the authors as active participants in the corporate rebranding exercise. The principles that guide the brand redesign have their foundations in best practice knowledge of corporate rebranding for each stage of the rebranding. However, current best practice is piecemeal, and tends to emphasize particular aspects of corporate rebranding such as internal branding. A challenge for the researchers and the organization is to integrate all aspects of best practice corporate rebranding seamlessly. The findings include a potential method for gaining multiple stakeholders' input and buy-in from the outset. Essentially, the method actively involves all major stakeholders including clients, staff, managers and external groups, and thus integrates internal and external perspectives into a single corporate brand. The method incorporates a values-based approach to a corporate brand. Finally, the application of the method highlights a strong community connection to the brand for a particular enterprise.

Applying corporate rebranding in the community sector has been an exciting journey of branding discovery. The researcher–organization partnership uses an action research approach as an innovative rebranding process. A sound theoretical framework was a point of departure for the research. The findings demonstrate a novel and feasible approach to community organization rebranding particularly the processes for achieving total stakeholder involvement, and further support the established principles of corporate rebranding. The current study makes five major research contributions. Firstly, the study extends the principles of corporate rebranding to the not-for-profit sector. Secondly, the study provides a means of articulating a values-based corporate rebrand, especially relevant to a not-for-profit organization. Thirdly, the study advocates initiating a corporate rebranding process by identifying and understanding the actual brand experiences of key stakeholders, the term for which is a brand values in use approach. Fourthly, this study indicates the importance of involving multiple stakeholders in the co-development of the corporate rebrand, pre-empting future dissonance with the brand. Fifthly, success of the above four contributions derives from the use of a relatively novel research method, action research, clearly a viable option for future studies and actual corporate rebranding endeavors. Minor nuanced contributions also infuse the paper. The paper highlights the irony of not-for-profit organizations having their considerable capacity to project a values-based vision of the brand identity, but often failing to do so. Essentially, such organizations fail to appreciate the benefits of embodying their values structurally and strategically into their core brand values. Another insight is that stakeholder buy-in requires more than a mere willingness-to-support a top-driven brand development. A further nuance is the need for CEOs of not-for-profit organizations to represent the ethos of the brand in all their interactions with stakeholders, to build credibility for stakeholder involvement in the rebranding process. A final consideration for academics is the potential to include not-for-profit cases much more explicitly in brand management courses at the tertiary education level and in executive development programs. Further research in the community sector could extend from general not-for-profit to the charity domain, where many organizations have already embarked on trying to refresh their images. Active partnerships between researchers and not-for-profit organizations can yield benefits for both. The limits of the scope of the study are its single case study nature, and the particular type of community organization. Further studies in other types of community organizations may yield similar or different outcomes. The authors argue that the action research rebranding process could have efficacy in a variety of organizations, where a total stakeholder-involvement strategy is desirable. Such contexts may include for-profit enterprises, such as in banking and heavy emissions creating industries, which are prone to considerable sensitivity from external stakeholders.