Internal Brand Management - a state of the art overview. Methods and tools based on literature research and company case studies

      Аннотация: Brands represent one of the most important intangible assets within companies; they have a positive impact on a company’s performance. The knowledge about the brand has to be managed and communicated to customers. Employees therefore play an important role because they interact directly with the customers. The key task of internal brand management is to turn employees into brand ambassadors. Therefore it is important to build up knowledge about the brand, promote brand commitment and develop the necessary skills and to define the right brand behavior. Companies always combine several tools with each other as experts confirm. Employees have to be actively involved for generating better and sustainable results. Another key success factor experts mentioned is the support of the top management. Without this support such projects cannot be realized. For this support the top management needs the awareness of the importance of this topic on the one hand and results to measure the success on the other. The final advice is to invest in internal brand management to increase the value of the brand, to improve the image and to keep customer satisfaction high by keeping the promises.

Ключевые слова: behavioral branding, Brand Behavior, brand identity, Brand Image, Corporate Brand, skills, Internal Brand Management, Brand Ambassador, Employees, Brand Commitment, Tools for Brand Management