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Service Brand Internalization: A Concept Model and its Marketing Implications
Changhong Bai ', Ye Chen2 Wei Qiu3 Business School, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, P. R. China (nkbai nankai.edu.cn) Business School, Nankai University, P. R. China 3 Business School, Nankai University, P. R. China
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ABSTRACT
Due to characteristics of service such as intangibility, heterogeneity, andinseparability, the value of service brand is transferred by the interaction between employees and customers. Researchers gradually realize that brand building needs involvement of every member in the corporation and emphasis on internal factors of the corporation such as internal communication, corporate culture, etc. Only several scholars have proposed the concept and opinions about "internal brandbuilding", "internal branding", and "internalize brand", but there is little further research.

We perform a longitudinal case study of 1 famous insurance company and find out some important factors of service brand building internally. To find out more valuable information and to confirm our conclusions from the above case study, we perform another 4 semi-structured interviews to 4 representativeservice companies from information communication, bank, hotel and insurance respectively. After these case studies, we propose the key endogenetic factors of service brand internalization, and construct a conceptual model of service brand internalization. Our work will further the research of service brand internalization and provide an effective instrument for service corporations to improve theirbrand management. Keywords: Service Brand, Internal branding, Brand Internalization

1. INTRODUCTION

Brands and branding have long been the main part of marketing research, and there has been much research on brand theory, brand strategy management and branding process. However, the principal focus has been on product brand rather than services brand(Turley & Moore, 1995; Krishnan & Hartline,2001; Aron O' Cass & Debra Grace, 2004). The research of product brand is relatively mature, but service brand is a new orientation in both research and practice field (Martin J.Eppler & Markus Will, 2001) . Only several scholars have pointed out that service brand building needs focus on the inside of corporations, and brand building needs internalization ( Berry, 2000; For Ind, 2001; deChernatony, L., Susan Segal-Horn, 2001)
Due to the difference between service and tangible products, service brand also has some characteristics different from product brand. An increasing number of researchers view service brand as one kind of commitment (e.g. Berry, 2000; Ward, Light & Goldstine 1999; Mistry 1998; Ambler & Styles 1996). This commitment is delivered through contact of customers andservice corporations, and the contact needs employees' excellent behavior to meet the commitment, and even surmount it. If there is no consistent brand awareness, sufficient internal communication, and clear brand commitment in employees' minds, the service corporations can neither provide satisfactory service to customers nor create successful service brand only through emphasis on brandpositioning, brand advertising and etc. Therefore, these exclusive characteristics of service brand make some scholars

examine service brand building from internal corporations. Our research aims to find out how successful service companies build their brands internally, and whether there are some common factors of internal brand building. We examine some representative service brands to explore what aremost important factors in service brand building internally.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW

Headings are numbered and capitalized. All major headings are centered in bold in 10 fonts. Do not put a period after the text of the heading. Leave one line above a major heading, and one line clear below before the start of the next paragraph or second-level heading. There is not much research on service...