Internal branding is a sub-discipline of branding that has seen a rapid rise since the year 2000. There are two schools of thought within this discipline, often referred to as version 1.0 and version 2.0. Version 1.0 focuses on the issue how external branding can be reflected back into the internal organisation (the so-called ‘selling the brand inside’ idea). Version 2.0 focuses on the question how companies’ internal strengths can engender a strong external image (inside-out branding).  Most successful cases are based on the latter approach.

Internal branding is a new subject that has emerged from real-life business practice. Just as with many other new subjects, it has taken scientists several years to start researching this new subject. But research on this aspect of branding now seems to really have picked up steam.   Recent Swiss research places the emphasis on brand-specific leadership, i.e. the management style managers should use to convert their employees into brand champions.

There has, until recently, been very little research into the effects of internal branding. Recent US/German research now shows that committed employees work with greater effectiveness and generate more revenue. But the same research also shows that those effects strongly hinge on the behaviour of the leader...

Riezebos’ BRG/ Brand Reputation Grid makes a distinction between a company’s reputation with its own people and with customers.  Based on these dimensions, four types of brands are identified (Nerd, Blank, Show and Personality Brands), each with their own characteristics; not only where branding is concerned, but also in terms of strategic management and human resources management (HRM).

Pixar Animation Studios is the well-known name behind animated box-office hits like Finding Nemo, Cars, Ratatouille and WALL-E. Ed Catmull, co-founder and president of Pixar, tells the story behind Pixar's success in Harvard Business Review. One of the key observations is that at Pixar, people are more important than ideas, and that team spirit can make all the difference. And Catmull furthermore states that strong leadership is required to enforce the values.

Geelhoed, Van Der Loo and Samhoud pinpoint five elements for an internal branding process in their 5B model. These five elements of culture change are: (1) signification, (2) intention, (3) experience, (4) reinforcement and (5) evaluation.

Leaders sometimes make bad decisions, even with the best of intentions and the right information available to them. Three researchers looked at 83 different decisions to pinpoint where mistakes are made in decision-making processes. These mistakes are generally down to the following factors: misleading by self-interest, emotional factors, and memories. The authors come up with seven points to consider prior to making a decision in order to better assess the risk factors.

Van Eck, Willems and Leenhouts describe five 'Stages of Internal Branding': (1) identifying the brand principles (positioning), having employees (2) explain, (3) charge and (4) experience the brand and (5) anchoring the brand in the organisation’s systems. The role of the brand changes in these phases from 'compass' to a situation where the brand is embedded in the system of the organization.

At the end of 2007, Mirdita Elstak obtained her doctorate from the Erasmus University with a dissertation on the effects of corporate identity on employee behaviour and identification with the company. She distinguishes three forms of identity: the identity as perceived by employees, the identity projected by the management, and the identity desired by the management. One of the conclusions she draws is that employees identify most strongly with a corporate identity when there is a match between the identity desired by the management and the identity perceived by the employees.

In 2007, Nicholas Ind – author of The Corporate Brand (1997) and Living the Brand (2001, 2004) – and Rune Bjerke published their latest book, Branding Governance. In this book, Ind and Bjerke challenge traditional branding methods. They propose a participatory process that spans the entire company and tailors to employees' need for meaningful work and customers’ demand for added value. They prefer the inside-out perspective over the outside-in perspective. The book is made up of eight chapters and has 270 pages.

A corporate brand is one of any company’s most important strategic assets. Companies that effectively manage their corporate brand can obtain a lasting competitive edge, even in hyper-competitive global markets. That makes a corporate brand an important weapon in the (strategic) struggle for stakeholder favour. ’Taking Brand Initiative’ is made up of three parts: ‘the basics’ (chapters 1 through 4), ‘managing corporate brands’ (chapters 5 through 7) and ‘pulling it all together’ (chapters 8 and 9).