The Brand Inside: The Factors of Failure and Success in Internal Branding - Special Issue on Irish Perspectives on Marketing Relationships and Networks

Internal branding seeks to achieve consistency with the external brand and encourage brand commitment and the possibility of brand championship among employees. It is the concerted, inter-departmental and multi-directional internal communications effort carried out in order to create and maintain an internal brand. Thus, internal branding can be identified as a specific tool and placed in the wider context of internal marketing. Based on an extensive study of relevant literature and previous studies, this article identifies 25 key factors or variables of failure and success in internal branding. These are grouped under seven headings of organisation, information, management, communication, strategy, staff and education. Integrating these dimensions with a number of extant models of brand development, the authors propose a consolidated internal branding framework (CIBF) to plan, execute and evaluate an internal branding programme. It is hoped that this conceptual framework contains both insights of value to scholars and practical recommendation to manager.