Re-Examining the Meaning of Corporate Branding : Does Corporate Advertising Give Useful Insights?

The paper re-examines the meaning of corporate branding from a conceptual and an interpretive methodological perspective through a two-stage process. The first phase is dominated by a semiotic deconstruction of corporate advertisements of four of the largest banks in Nigeria. The second engages customers of these banks in an interpretive interview process. A framework of narrow and broad discourses on the meaning of corporate branding is evolved. The discourses contend that the meaning of corporate branding, which is commonly conceived as an embodiment of promise, could also be understood as an expression of corporate personality — with the propensity to create meanings. This paper makes a departure from the usual positivistic approach to corporate branding by examining the meaning of this concept from an interpretive point of view. This gives an opportunity to examine what corporations, the custodians and owners of corporate branding, have to say about the meaning of the concept