Taking Brand Initiative: How Companies Can Align Strategy, Culture, and Identity Through Corporate Branding

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WHO ARE YOU?

When corporate branding works, it is intimately tied into the organization's identity. Knowing what creates the sense of “we” in your company allows you to authentically tell others what your brand stands for. But knowing who you are also requires intimate knowledge of how stakeholders see you. This is because external images interact with the ways in which employees think about their organization.

In the late 1980s the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey faced significant misalignment of its vision, culture, and images.¹ At that time the growing presence of homeless people in New York City's bus and train terminals was upsetting customers and creating negative public images of the Port Authority, which operates these facilities. ...