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Much attention has been devoted recently to corporate brands, corporate images and corporate reputations, the focal point of serious managerial, academic, and consultancy concerns. Managers believe corporate brands are more important today than ever. According to a survey in Europe, Asia and North America, almost 90 percent of chief executive officers (CEOs) believe that a company’s reputation is somewhat more important today than it was five years ago, and two-thirds of them agree that it is much more important today (Hill & Knowlton, 2003). The same survey suggests that a company’s image is a priority for corporate executives today. Almost two-thirds of CEOs said they were taking personal responsibility for the protection and enhancement of corporate image. Very few placed responsibility on the board of directors (14%) or on corporate communication executives (12%).

This chapter reviews major concepts relevant to corporate brand management using corporate communication. Applicable literature comes from various disciplines, mainly communication and marketing. Besides defining major concepts, this chapter points out the rising importance of corporate brands and that of the communication activities that build them, namely corporate advertising and ad-like communication activities.

This chapter develops a behavioural framework to explain how corporate communication works. The framework considers corporate brands and corporate communication from a constituency’s point of view. More specifically, it explains constituency’s psychological and behavioural responses to corporate communication. The analysis is thus carried out from a behavioural perspective. According to a neo-behavioural paradigm to communication, corporate communication stimuli affect corporate brand knowledge in constituencies’ minds, these corporate communication effects being moderated by both constituency-related factors as well as stimulus-related factors. In turn, corporate brand knowledge may affect constituency behaviour.

This chapter provides some guidance for designing corporate communication programmes using corporate advertising and ad-like communication activities. It develops a decision-making model to assist managers select which corporate communication tools to use. The model considers corporate brands and corporate communication from a company’s point of view. Specifically, the model prescribes how managers should select among the various means of communicating about the corporate brand. The analysis is thus carried out from a managerial perspective and results in a theoretically sound and practically applicable decision- making model, which seems to be superior to previous approaches to selecting qualitatively different communication tools, particularly among the range of broad corporate communication tools.

This chapter summarises the findings of the research, discusses their managerial implications, assesses their contributions to theory relating to corporate brand management and corporate communication and suggests future research directions on using corporate advertising and ad-like communication activities in corporate brand management.