The Role of Internal Branding in the Delivery of Employee Brand Promise

The rise of corporate marketing and corporate branding has raised awareness of the crucial role that employees play in corporate marketing and the corporate branding process. The historical analysis of corporate-level constructs since the 1950s by Balmer1 reveals a number of concepts such as corporate image, corporate identity, corporate branding and corporate reputation. All these different corporate-level perspectives and concepts are synthesised under the ‘corporate marketing vortex’.2 The corporate marketing mix of Balmer as shown in Figure 6.1 outlines how the aforementioned concepts can possibly be orchestrated. Table 6.1 also gives a brief summary of each element of the corporate marketing mix. The focus of this paper is on the ‘covenant’ element of the six corporate marketing mix elements. Covenant looks at corporate marketing from the perspective of corporate branding.