Recovering the corporate brand through stakeholder co-creation.

Abstract

Corporate brands may encounter failure or suffer crises due to their own actions or from the actions of others. Such crises weaken the brand not only in the eyes of its customers but also with its stakeholders. Actions therefore need to be taken to recover the corporate brand. Existing research on brand recovery concentrates on the brand/customer interaction but recent branding literature acknowledges the significance of customers and stakeholders in brand co-creation. Responding to several calls for further research, this study aims is to investigate corporate brand recovery from the perspective of stakeholder co-creation. Using multiple data sources, the conclusions from this study include the following. First, empirical evidence is provided for the importance of stakeholders in the corporate brand recovery process. Second, although corporate brand recovery shares some characteristics with re-branding, there is a strong emphasis on repairing trust. Third, recovery efforts extend beyond those identified previously to include core functions and tangible evidence. These finding provide a theoretical account of recovery processes brought about by stakeholder co-creation and offer an initial recovery framework for corporate brand managers.