تقویت ارزش های برند داخلی با برنامه های سفارشی برند: توسعه و آزمایش مدل عامل موفقیت Strengthening internal brand equity with brand ambassador programs: development and testing of a success factor model

Introduction  Internal branding is a relatively new term, which was first used in 1999 (Keller 1999; Thomson et al. 1999), followed by numerous books and articles that have been published since then. The increasing relevance of the internal anchorage of the brand is particularly reasoned by broadening the brand concept to services, b-to-b and non-profit markets, which are dominated by corporate brands. These markets are characterized by a lower relevance of mass communication and packaging and a higher relevance of face-to-face communication and personal interaction. Therefore, company employees are pivotal brand touch points and fundamental drivers of brand equity, while they are also positive brand communicators. Much academic research has tested the link between internal brand anchorage and external brand performance (Baumgarth and Schmidt 2010; Burmann et al. 2009a; Henkel et al. 2007), while most studies have supported the positive impact of the former on the latter; hence, the question of how management can increase internal brand anchorage, has gained importance. Leadership, communication and human resource management were identified as potential areas of interest (Burmann and Zeplin 2005). While leadership (Morhart et al. 2009; Vallaster and de Chernatony 2006; Dunn and Davis 2004) and communication (Gilly and Wolfinbarger 1998; Wentzel et al. 2010) were tested by empirical studies, scientific knowledge of the impact of HR activities on brand anchorage has received less attention amongst marketing scholars. Therefore, knowledge about brand ambassador programs (BAPs) is predominately anecdotal (Causon 2004; Rehmet and Dinnie 2013; Koch 2014). The aim of this article was to identify BAPs’ success factors by first defining the corresponding term, followed by a BAP framework based on the literature that was reviewed. A longitudinal case study about an insurance company that we for reasons of anonymity called BetterLife tested the practical application of the framework, while the results of the case study were used to adapt the model.