Developing interactive branding in business networks

Research on business relationships in industrial marketing and networks has mostly focused on developing cooperative relationships and mutual interdependencies based on e.g. trust, commitment and co-created value. It is important to note that interactions form the key in this process by developing ‘jointness’, denoting a mutual perspective between different actors. Socially constructed value-mechanisms of relationships, such as trust and commitment, influence the position and a role of an actor in the network. These processes affect corporate identity and reputation, and result in the attractiveness of a corporate brand. However, current research on corporate branding in business marketing has mostly been focused on a single  company and one-firm’s perspective on identity or reputation. In this cross-disciplinary field of research, the joint connections between companies have not been noted explicitly or deeply enough. Moreover, in the interaction and network research ofthe IMP-group, the notion of corporate brands and branding has so far been largely neglected and isolated from interactive business relationships between firms.

In order to respond to these research gaps, two conceptual models are developed, where internal and external dimensions of branding are interactively and contextually aligned and seen from a relationship-based perspective. As an outcome, a mutual branding dimension is formed, as an ‘in-between’ matterresiding in the relational actor’s space.Thus, our proposition here is that this view results in a strategic concept, which is named Interactive Brandingin business networks. Based on this idea, the paper contributes to current business marketing and corporate branding literature by extending the knowledge of business-to-business relationships and corporate brands.

Keywords: Interactive branding, business relationships, networks, interactions, corporate brand identity, reputation.