Invitation to Inaugural Lecture by Professor MSO Richard Gyrd-Jones

Brands have never been so ubiquitous as they pervade our private, public and organizational lives: product, service, corporate, employer, celebrity and place brands are common. Not only are brands significant drivers of the economy, they have become significant guideposts in the way we relate to one another: At the personal level, through the brands we surround ourselves with, in our networks as signifiers of “membership” and organizational levels as corporate and employer brands. There has been a paradigmatic shift in the way we conceive of brands, where brand identity is emergent, relational and multiple, even conflictual: This shift fundamentally challenges the management models, which assume a coherent identity defined by the brand and unilaterally communicated to targeted publics. From a socio-cultural perspective brands challenge our ontological assumptions about their constitutive nature as media through which identities (individual, community and brand) are articulated and manifested. Whilst often portrayed in negative terms, this new era of brand management provides opportunities to utilize the articulations and manifestations of personal and collective identity to guide brand identity development. In this lecture Richard Gyrd-Jones will highlight how his research contributes to this dynamic view of branding, what challenges lie ahead in developing and managing brands, for both established brands and new ventures, and how we can integrate this into our outreach and education.

Program
14:00-14:10 Welcome by Head of Department Adam Lindgreen
14:10-15:00 Inaugural lecture by Richard Gyrd-Jones
15:00-16:00 Reception in Rotunden