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has for many years played an important role in their marketing strategy. In the 20th century branding emerged as a means of competition. Well recognised products and services created by the help of product attributes, names, packages and advertising have helped the organisations to differentiate themselves from the rest, and thereby created market values and competitive advantages. (Martin & Hetrick, 2006; Aaker, 1991) However, branding and its uses have apparently reached new levels of market penetration and it is the branding of companies that has become increasingly important. (Martin and Hetrick, 2006; Lair et al. p. 309) That a brand is just a name or symbol employed to sell products and services is a common impression held by non-specialists. Today, many branding specialists would suggest that it involves so much more than that. (Martin and Hetrick, 2006) Martin and Hetrick (2006) offer a definition of brand that incorporates the people management aspect:

“A brand is a promise made and kept in every strategic, marketing and human resource activity, every action, every corporate decision and every customer and employee interaction intended to deliver strategic value to an organization.” Martin and Hetrick (2006)

In the 1980s, due to globalisation, the marketing environment was changing quickly. Media was fragmented into new channels; there were rapid advances in information and communications technology and changing patterns of distribution channels. This induced many brand-owning organisations to begin to reflect upon the value of their brands and to deliberate new ways of managing them. (Piercy & Cravens, 1995) The literature has especially treated the challenges organisations face when “managing and aligning multiple identities and images across different stakeholder groups.”(Knox & Bickerton, 2003)

This has brought about different outcomes such as a greater emphasis on corporate branding in order to strengthen corporate profiles, and in many cases a prioritisation of corporate branding over product branding. Moreover, there has been an increasing interest from the academic world in the way corporate brands are managed. (Knox & Bickerton, 2003)

On what basis can one say that one brand is stronger than another? One common measurement is brand equity which identifies the feasibility of a brand to supervene value to the firm or to its customers. This concept emerged in the 1980s and raised the importance of the brand in marketing strategy. Although there are many different definitions and views on how brand equity should be conceived, most practitioners agree that it relates to marketing outcomes that are uniquely attributable to a brand. (Keller, 2003) Aakers' definition of brand equity is one of the most cited and well known. (Park & Srinivasan, 1994) He defines it as:

“A set of brand assets and liabilities linked to a brand, its name and symbol that add to or subtract from the value provided by a product or service to a firm and/or to that firm′s customers”. (Aaker, 1991)

In this definition, Aaker highlights that a brand also can be a liability and subtract value if not managed in the right way. Aspects of brand equity include brand loyalty, brand awareness, brand associations, perception of quality and other proprietary brand assets. The last aspect refers to the firm's patents and trademarks. (Aaker, 1991)