The Impact of Digital Corporate Branding on Consumer-Company Identification

Abstract

Developing a distinctive image in the marketplace is increasingly recognized as a key part of a company’s marketing strategy and a route for achieving competitive advantage. Strong corporate brands (CB) can lead to a wide customer base and a distinctive image. As product and service offers become similar, companies tend to emphasize the communication of CBs to stakeholders as a way to convey distinctiveness and uniqueness. Nonetheless, although CB focuses primarily in reaching all the company’s stakeholders, consumers are increasingly becoming a core target for corporate branding. Consumers are exposed to the image portrayed by a company online. The website, therefore, can be a reflection of the company’s CB’s characteristics and personality and a company’s online atmospherics and its online stores may have an impact on consumer behaviour. In the online context, the CB dimensions of visual appeal, the way the information is communicated, and social responsibility are crucial. A well-liked corporate website could lead to favourable behavioural outcomes, such as positive word of mouth, and repatronage intentions. Despite the obvious commercial benefits and the recent research attention on online corporate branding, the impact of online dimensions of CB in consumer perceptions is overlooked. Our study investigates the impact of three online CB dimensions (visual appeal, communications, CSR) on consumer-company identification (CCI), and the behavioural outcomes (word of mouth, repatronage intention) in retail sector. We employed a scenario-based quasi-experiment in two retail settings—grocery and clothing—using two fictitiously created brands and their websites. Three scenarios for each brand were created representing high, medium, and low levels of descriptions of dimensions of CB on the websites. A questionnaire was created and the scales operationalization relied on adaptations from previous research. Following a pilot, the data were collected via web-based survey software, using a convenience sample of cross-section demographics of UK consumers, resulting in 244 valid responses. We tested the hypothesized relationships using partial least squares-based structural equation modelling (PLS SEM). The results show that the way in which a company communicates its CB online, as well as its socially responsible activities, positively influences consumers’ identification with the company. Such identification also leads to the generation of positive word of mouth and repatronage intentions. The results also reveal that high degree of information placed on a website is not the most optimal tool for generating positive CCI. Further, stronger the firm’s portrayed engagement in corporate giving, the more a consumer identifies with the firm. Overall, the study makes novel contributions to the domain of CB and its impact on consumer perceptions, and leads to several managerial implications and avenues for further research.