Data-driven strategic communication for brand identity building: the case study of Capital One
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7433/s125.2024.05Keywords:
strategic communication, brand identity, data-driven approach, big data, illustrative case studyAbstract
Purpose of the paper: This paper aims to investigate the role of strategic communication, empowered by the data-driven approach, in the process of brand identity building.
Methodology: The paper is drawn from Jaakkola's "theory synthesis design" (2020). Through the lens of the Resource-Based View, data-driven approach in strategic communication and branding studies are integrated to reexamine Urde's Corporate Brand Identity Matrix. Through a theoretical re-conceptualization a novel framework is derived. An illustrative case study relying on secondary data offers empirical support.
Findings: The theoretical framework shows that big data, as strategic resources, improve organized listening and reflective communication, impacting on the brand identity building. Data-driven strategic communication influences mission and vision (innovation orientation), culture (data-driven decision making), competences (data science skills), value proposition (personalized products and experiences), relationships (data-driven corporate communication), and positioning (strategic stakeholder listening). The Capital One case study, as best practice, illustrates the application of the novel theoretical framework.
Research limits: The study presents the limitations of a conceptual paper built from the literature review and on a single illustrative case study, based on secondary data.
Practical implications: The proposed theoretical framework could orient top management decisions and strengthens the strategic role of communication/brand managers in brand identity building in the digital age. Thanks to strategic communication based on a data-driven logic, managers could develop new value propositions for innovative business models, improve competitive positioning and build personalized relationships. Moreover, the inclusion of data in corporate culture, as well as the synergistic coexistence of different managerial skills, facilitate performance excellence.
Originality of the paper: This interdisciplinary paper proposes a rethinking of brand identity building, emphasizing the data-driven approach in strategic communication.
References
AAKER D. A. (1996), Building Strong Brands, The Free Press, New York.
AAKER J. L. (1997), “Dimensions of brand personality”, Journal of Marketing Research, vol. 34, n. 3, pp. 347-356.
ACETO G., PERSICO V., PESCAPÉ A. (2020), “Industry 4.0 and health: Internet of things, big data, and cloud computing for healthcare 4.0”, Journal of Industrial Information Integration, vol. 18, pp. 100-129.
AILAWADI K. L., LEHMANN D. R., NESLIN S. A. (2003), “Revenue premium as an outcome measure of brand equity”, Journal of Marketing, vol. 67, n. 4, pp. 1-17.
AIMÉ I., BERGER-REMY F., LAPORTE M. E. (2022), “The brand, the persona and the algorithm: How datafication is reconfiguring marketing work”, Journal of Business Research, vol. 145, n. 1, pp. 814-827.
BANASIEWICZ A. D. (2013), Marketing database analytics: Transforming data for competitive advantage, Routledge.
BARNEY J. (1991), “Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage”, Journal of Management, vol. 17, n. 1, pp. 99–120.
BOWEN G. A. (2009), “Document analysis as a qualitative research method”, Qualitative Research Journal, vol. 9, n. 2, pp. 27-40.
BRODIE R. J., BENSON-REA M. (2016), “Country of origin branding: An integrative perspective”, Journal of Product & Brand Management, vol. 25, n.4, pp. 322-336.
CHADWICK C., SUPER J. F., KWON K. (2015), “Resource orchestration in practice: CEO emphasis on SHRM, commitment‐based HR systems, and firm performance”, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 36, n. 3, pp. 360-376.
CHEN H., CHIANG R. H., STOREY V. C. (2012), “Business intelligence and analytics: From big data to big impact”, MIS Quarterly, vol. 36, n. 4, pp. 1165–1188.
CHEUNG K. W., KWOK J. T., LAW M. H., TSUI K. C. (2003), “Mining customer product ratings for personalized marketing”, Decision Support Systems, vol. 35, n. 2, pp. 231-243.
CHUNG S.-Y., BYROM J. (2021), “Co-creating consistent brand identity with employees in the hotel industry”, Journal of Product & Brand Management, vol. 30, n. 1, pp. 74–89.
COLLINS J. C., PORRAS J. I. (1997), Built to Last, Random House, London.
CONTE F., BERTOLINI A., SIANO A. (2022), “Big data analytics vs brand building: conciliare le prospettive attraverso una strategia duale”, Proceedings of XIX SIM Conference 2022 – Next Generation Marketing People, Planet, Place: cooperation & shared value for a new era of critical marketing, 20-21 ottobre, Università degli Studi di Salerno.
CORNELISSEN J. (2008), Corporate communication. A guide to theory and practice, Sage, London.
DA SILVEIRA C., LAGES C., SIMÕES C. (2013), “Reconceptualizing brand identity in a dynamic environment”, Journal of Business Research, vol. 66, n. 1, pp. 28-36.
DE CHERNATONY L. (2010), From Brand Vision to Brand Evaluation, Butterworth- Heinemann, Oxford, UK.
DEW R., ANSARI A., TOUBIA O. (2022), “Letting logos speak: Leveraging Multiview representation learning for data-driven branding and logo design”. Marketing Science, vol. 4, n. 2, pp. 401-425.
EISENHARDT K. M. (1989), “Building theories from case study research”, Academy of Management Review, vol. 14, n. 4, pp. 532-550.
EREVELLES S., FUKAWA N., SWAYNE L. (2016), “Big data consumer analytics and the transformation of marketing”, Journal of Business Research, vol. 69, n. 2, pp. 897-904.
FENG Y., GUO Y. (2018), “Research on business model innovation in the era of big data”, 2018 3rd International Conference on Humanities Science, Management, and Education Technology (HSMET JUNE 2018) (pp. 482-485), Atlantis Press.
GIGLIO S., PANTANO E., BILOTTA E., MELEWAR T. C. (2020), “Branding luxury hotels: Evidence from the analysis of consumers’ “big” visual data on TripAdvisor”, Journal of Business Research, vol. 119, pp. 495-501.
GROVER V., CHIANG R. H., LIANG T. P., ZHANG D. (2018), “Creating strategic business value from big data analytics: A research framework”, Journal of Management Information Systems, vol. 35, n. 2, pp. 388-423.
GUPTA A., DEOKAR A., IYER L., SHARDA R., SCHRADER, D. (2018), “Big data & analytics for societal impact: Recent research and trends”, Information Systems Frontiers, vol. 20, pp. 185-194.
HORST P., DUBOFF R. (2015), “Don’t let big data bury your brand”, Harvard Business Review, vol. 93, n. 11, pp. 78-86.
IGLESIAS O., SALEEM F. Z. (2015), “How to support consumer-brand relationships: The role of corporate culture and human resource policies and practices”, Marketing Intelligence & Planning, vol. 33, n. 2, pp. 216-234.
IHATOR A. (2001), “Communication style in the information age”, Corporate Communication: An International Journal, vol. 6, n. 4, pp. 199-204.
INVERNIZZI E. (2004), “Relazioni pubbliche e comunicazione aziendale”, Sviluppo e organizzazione, n. 204.
INVERNIZZI E., ROMENTI S. (2013), Progetti di comunicazione per la reputazione aziendale, Franco Angeli.
JAAKKOLA E. (2020), “Designing conceptual articles: four approaches”, Academy of Marketing Science Review, vol. 10, n. 1, pp. 18-26.
JOBS C. G., GILFOIL D. M., AUKERS S. M. (2016), “How marketing organizations can benefit from big data advertising analytics”, Academy of Marketing Studies Journal, vol. 20, n. 1, pp. 18- 34.
KALLINIKOS J., CONSTANTIOU I. D. (2015), “Big data revisited: a rejoinder”, Journal of Information Technology, vol. 30, n. 1, pp. 70-74.
KIRON D., SHOCKLEY R. (2011), “Creating business value with analytics”, MIT Sloan Management Review, vol. 5, n. 1, pp. 57–63.
KORNUM N., GYRD-JONES R., AL ZAGIR N., BRANDIS K. A. (2017), “Interplay between intended brand identity and identities in a Nike related brand community: Co-existing synergies and tensions in a nested system”, Journal of Business Research, vol. 70, pp. 432-440.
KRISTAL S., BAUMGARTH C., HENSELER J. (2020), “Performative corporate brand identity in industrial markets: The case of German prosthetics manufacturer Ottobock.”, Journal of Business Research, vol. 114, pp. 240-253.
LEVY J.S. (2008), “Case studies: types, designs, and logics of inference”, Conflict Management and Peace Science, vol. 25, n. 1, pp. 1-18.
LOEBBECKE C., PICOT A. (2015), “Reflections on societal and business model transformation arising from digitization and big data analytics: A research agenda”, The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, vol. 24, n. 3, pp. 149-157.
MACINNIS D.J. (2011), “A framework for conceptual contributions in marketing”, Journal of Marketing, vol. 75, n. 4, pp. 136-154.
MANDELLI A. (2017), Big Data Marketing: Creare valore nella platform economy con dati, intelligenza artificiale, EGEA, Milano.
MARIOTTO F.L., ZANNI P.P. MORAES G.H.S. (2014), “What is the use of a single-case study in management research?”, Revista de Administração de Empresas, vol. 54, n. 4, pp. 358-369.
MATA F. J., FUERST W. L., BARNEY J. B. (1995), “Information technology and sustained competitive advantage: A resource-based analysis”, MIS Quarterly, vol. 19, n. 4, pp. 487–505.
MCAFEE A., BRYNJOLFSSON E., DAVENPORT T. H., PATIL D. J., BARTON D. (2012), “Big data. The management revolution”, Harvard Business Review, vol. 90, n. 10, pp. 61-67.
MCGUIRE T., MANYIKA J., CHUI M. (2012), “Why big data is the new competitive advantage”, Ivey Business Journal, vol. 76, n. 4, pp. 1-4.
MERRIAM S.B. (1988), Case Study Research in Education: A Qualitative Approach, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.
MICHEL G. (2017), “From brand identity to polysemous brands: commentary on Performing identities: Processes of brand and stakeholder identity co-construction”, Journal of Business Research, vol. 70, pp. 453-455.
MIKALEF P., ILIAS P. O., GIANNAKOS M., KROGSTIE J., LEKAKOS G. (2016), Big data and strategy: a research framework, MCIS 2016 Proceedings. Available at http://aisel.aisnet.org/mcis2016/50.
OLSEN L. E. (2018), “Future of branding in the digital age”, in SASSON A., eds., At the forefront, looking ahead (pp. 73-84), Scandinavian University Press
PADELA S.M.F., WOOLISCROFT B., GANGLMAIR-WOOLISCROFT A. (2023), “Brand systems: Integrating branding research perspectives”, European Journal of Marketing, vol. 57, n. 2, pp. 387–425.
PANTANO E., GIGLIO S., DENNIS C. (2019), “Making sense of consumers’ tweets: Sentiment outcomes for fast fashion retailers through Big Data analytics”, International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, vol. 47, n. 9, pp. 915-927.
PARK C. W., JAWORSKI B. J., MACINNIS D. J. (1986), “Strategic brand concept-image management”, Journal of Marketing, vol. 50, n. 4, pp. 135–145.
PHILLIPS J. (2014), Building A Digital Analytics Organization, Pearson, London.
POWER D. J. (2014), “Using ‘Big Data’ for analytics and decision support”, Journal of Decision-Systems, vol. 23, n. 2, pp. 222-228.
PRAHALAD C. K., HAMEL G. (1990), “The core competence of the corporation”, Harvard Business Review, vol. 68, n. 3, pp. 79–91.
SCAPENS R. W. (2004), “Doing case study research”, in HUMPHREY, C., LEE, B. H. (Eds.). The real life guide to accounting research: a behind-the-scenes view of using qualitative research methods (pp. 257-279), Elsevier.
SCHIAVONE F. PIETRONUDO M.C. SABETTA A. FERRETTI M. (2022), “Total quality service in digital era”, The TQM Journal, vol. 35, pp. 1170-1193.
SIANO A., VOLLERO A., BERTOLINI A. (2022), “From brand control to brand co-creation: An integrated framework of brand paradigms and emerging brand perspectives”, Journal of Business Research, vol. 152, pp. 372-386.
SIANO A., VOLLERO A., SIGLIOCCOLO M. (2015), Corporate Communication Management. Accrescere la reputazione per attrarre risorse, Giappichelli.
SORESCU A. (2017), “Data‐driven business model innovation”, Journal of Product Innovation Management, vol. 34, n. 5, pp. 691-696.
SPARROW P., COOPER C., HIRD M. (2015), Do we need HR?:Repositioning people management for success, Springer.
TAYLOR D. (2017), The Brandgym: A Practical Workout for Growing Brands in a Digital Age, RedDoor Publishing, London.
TENG D. N., LU P. Y. (2016), “Value proposition discovery in big data enabled business model innovation”, 2016 International Conference on Management Science and Engineering (ICMSE) (pp. 1754-1759), IEEE.
TIEN J. M. (2013), “Big data: Unleashing information”, Journal of Systems Science and Systems Engineering, vol. 22, n. 2, pp. 127–151.
TIRUNILLAI S., TELLIS G. (2014), “Mining marketing meaning from online chatter: strategic brand analysis of big data using latent dirichlet allocation”, Journal of Marketing Research, vol. 51, n. 4, pp. 463–479.
URBINATI A., BOGERS M., CHIESA V., FRATTINI F. (2019), “Creating and capturing value from Big Data: A multiple-case study analysis of provider companies”, Technovation, vol. 84, pp. 21-36.
URDE M. (2013), “The corporate brand identity matrix”, Journal of Brand Management, vol. 20, pp. 742-761.
VAN RULER B., VERČIČ D. (2005), “Public relations and communication management in Europe: challenges and opportunities”, Comunicação e Sociedade, vol. 8, pp. 179-191.
VELOUTSOU C. (2023), “Enlightening the brand building–audience response link”, Journal of Brand Management, vol. 30, pp. 550-566.
VELOUTSOU C., DELGADO-BALLESTER E. (2018), “New challenges in brand management”, Spanish Journal of Marketing, vol. 22, n. 3, pp. 254–271.
WAMBA S. F., GUNASEKARAN A., AKTER S., REN S. J. F., DUBEY R., CHILDE S. J. (2017), “Big data analytics and firm performance: Effects of dynamic capabilities”, Journal of Business Research, vol. 70, n. 1, pp. 356–365.
WEDEL M., KANNAN P. K. (2016), “Marketing analytics for data-rich environments”, Journal of Marketing, vol. 80, n. 6, pp. 97-121.
WEINER M., KOCHHAR S. (2016), Irreversible: The Public Relations Big Data Revolution, Institute for Public Relations, Gainesville FL.
WERNERFELT B. (1984), “A resource-based view of the firm”, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 5, p. 2, pp. 171–180.
WHEELER S. R. (2016), Architecting Experience. A Marketing Science and Digital Analytics Handbook, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd, Singapore.
WIDER S., VON WALLPACH S., MÜHLBACHER H. (2018), “Brand management: Unveiling the delusion of control”, European Management Journal, vol. 36, n. 3, pp. 301-305.
WIENCIERZ C., RÖTTGER U. (2017), “The use of big data in corporate communication”, Corporate Communications: An International Journal, vol. 22, n. 3, pp. 258-272.
WIESENBERG M., ZERFASS A., MORENO A. (2017), “Big Data and Automation in Strategic Communication”, International Journal of Strategic Communication, vol. 11, n. 2, pp. 95-114.
WOERNER S.L., WIXOM B.H. (2015), “Big data: extending the business strategy toolbox”, Journal of Information Technology, vol. 30, n. 1, pp. 60–62.
YAN Y., GUPTA S., LICSANDRU T. C., SCHOEFER K. (2022), “Integrating machine learning, modularity and supply chain integration for Branding 4.0”, Industrial Marketing Management, vol. 104, pp. 136-149.
YIN R.K. (2017), Case Study Research and Applications: Design and Methods, Sage publications, Thousand Oaks.
YU W., CHAVEZ R., JACOBS M. A., FENG M. (2018), “Data-driven supply chain capabilities and performance: A resource-based view”, Transportation Research Part E: logistics and transportation review, vol. 114, pp. 371-385.
ZHANG C., WANG X., CUI A. P., HAN S. (2020), “Linking big data analytical intelligence to customer relationship management performance”, Industrial Marketing Management, vol. 91, pp. 483-494.
Websites
ANNUAL REPORT CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL CORPORATION (2022), available at https://investor.capitalone.com/static-files/bc564c0f-4d48-4ccb-b0c2-dc34a2c48537 (accessed in October 2023).
CAPITAL ONE CORPORATE WEBSITE, available at https://www.capitalone.com/ (accessed in October 2023)
FORTUNE (2023), available at https://fortune.com/franchise-list-page/methodology-americas-most-innovative-companies-2023/ (accessed in October 2023).
RAGAN EMPLOYEE COMMUNICATIONS AWARD (2023), available at https://s39939.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/ECAwards_Program_TPTW_Final_Web.pdf (accessed in October 2023)
YEN W., VALIA R. (2013), Impacts of Data on Brand Management, Kenny & Company. Available at: https://michaelskenny.com/points-of-view/impacts-of- big-data-on-brand-management/ (accessed in October 2023)
