Introducing brandstudies

brandstudies is a research project established in 2002 as a three-year LOK project funded by the National Council of Social Sciences in Denmark and LEGO Company. Professor Majken Schultz from the Copenhagen Business School is leading the research project together with Professor Mary Jo Hatch from McIntire School of Commerce at University of Virginia.

brandstudies involves researchers from both schools as well as other leading thinkers with a special interest in corporate branding processes. The ambition of brandstudies is to generate new knowledge about the paradoxes and the inherent managerial and organizational challenges of corporate branding. We seek to offer a realistic and rich understanding of not only the organizational and financial benefits that corporate branding brings, but also the problems and the difficulties that are involved in creating successful and meaningful corporate brands.

The purpose of brandstudies is particularly to study and enhance our understanding of:

1. relations between identity and corporate branding from a multidisciplinary perspective,

2. the cycles of corporate branding arising from dynamic processes between culture, vision and image,

3. the implementation of corporate branding strategy, and

4. how brand building is linked to communication and channels.

The specific research activities involve a longitudinal study of the brand strategy in LEGO Company; the development of a series of cases based in the member companies of Corporate Branding Initiative showing different challenges in the management of corporate brands; a multi-case study of brand retail in relation to corporate branding and finally studies about how corporate brands are expressed among consumers in brand communities.