The management of corporate personality: An IMC perspective

The symmetry between internal marketing and external marketing communications has been of interest in the Integrated Marketing Communications literature for some time. Kliatchko (2008) states that the culture of marketing needs to be communicated internally at all levels of the organsation including areas outside of the marketing domain such as HR and Finance. Fill (2009) talks about employees ‘living the brand’. The purpose of this is to ensure that an organisation is communicating the same values and culture internally and externally (Luck and Moffatt, 2009). However Laurie and Mortimer (2011) discovered that one of the main differences between IMC theory and practice was that practitioners placed less emphasis on the role of internal communications. The purpose of this study is to examine how corporate personality and culture is managed internally and externally in the UK communications industry. This industry is currently going through fundamental changes due to the influence of digital media and the development of integrated marketing communications (KeyNote, 2012). Although much is written about the industry and how it is changing in publications such as Campaign and Brand Republic, the author is unaware of any studies that have applied the academic theories of corporate personality and corporate identity to this particular industry. Such a study is worthwhile in that, not only does it provide an insight into how corporate personality is utilised in a highly competitive industry to achieve differentiation, but it also provides a picture of how these agencies may approach this issue when working with clients. Do they “practice what they preach”, in terms of IMC, or say one thing to clients and do another themselves.