How a Corporate Influencer Co-creates Brand Meaning: The Case of Pawel Dillinger from Deutsche Telekom
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
How a Corporate Influencer Co‑creates Brand Meaning: The Case of Pawel Dillinger from Deutsche Telekom Andreas Hesse1 · Holger J. Schmidt1 · Carsten Baumgarth2
© Springer Nature Limited 2020
Abstract Research on the internal anchorage of a brand constitutes an important building block of the brand management discipline. Considering this, the increasing importance of a positive overall brand experience along all brand touch points has resulted in a parallel increase in the importance of how employees can live the brand. Corporate influencers, an area of study that is to date underresearched, could be a vehicle to authentically bring a brand’s identity closer not only to customers but also to employees. Therefore, our research focuses on the question of how a corporate influencer expresses the positioning of a corporate brand to internal audiences. To gain a deeper understanding of the instruments and tactics of an impactful corporate influencer, we chose an in-depth case study approach. We selected Pawel Dillinger, an informal corporate influencer of the German telecommunication brand Deutsche Telekom, and deeply analyzed his use of an internal social media platform to promote the corporate brand. Our research presents content categories and communication styles, underpins the role of authenticity in internal brand management, and illustrates how a brand ambassador contributes to the enacting of the values of a corporate brand. We do so by offering seven propositions characterizing the communication habits of a corporate influencer. Keywords Brand management · Corporate influencer · Brand ambassador · Internal branding · Corporate brand · Co-creation
Introduction Although the term “internal branding” was introduced relatively late to the brand management literature (Keller 1999; Thomson et al. 1999), today’s research on the internal anchorage of a brand is an important building block of the discipline (Piehler et al. 2018; Iglesias et al. 2017). According to Saleem and Iglesias (2016, p. 50), internal branding is a process with the objective “to enable employees to consistently co-create brand value with multiple stakeholders.” The reasons for the increasing relevance of the concept involve several well-known factors: First, the focus of brand management has been broadened from consumer goods to industry sectors that are dominated by corporate brands (Brexendorf and Keller 2017). Services, b-to-b markets * Andreas Hesse [email protected] 1
Koblenz University of Applied Sciences, Konrad‑Zuse‑Str. 1, 56075 Koblenz, Germany
Berlin School of Economics and Law, Badensche Str. 52, 10825 Berlin, Germany
2
and non-profit sectors are typically characterized by a high relevance of personal communication and direct interaction between (potential) customers and employees. Second, the increasing importance of the service sector and of services within other sectors also emphasizes relationship building (Grönroos 2017). Third, modern consumers approach advertising more critically and actively s
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