Correspondence: Nicola Riley, University of Bremen, Chair of Innovative Brand Management, PO Box: 330 440, Bremen, D-28334, Germany Tel: +49 421 218 8638 Fax: +49 421 218 8648 E-mail: nicolamriley@yahoo.de

¹is a professor at the University of Bremen, Germany and holds the Chair for Innovative Brand Management (LiM^® ) at the University of Bremen. After his employment with Ogilvy & Mather in Cape Town, South Africa, he completed a degree in business administration in 1989 and joined the Institute of Marketing at the University of Münster, Germany, as a research assistant. Having attained his doctoral degree, he became an associate professor at the Institute of Marketing in Münster with Professor Dr Dr h.c. Heribert Meffert. He gained his formal qualification for a full German professorship ('Habilitation') in February 2002, upon completion of which he accepted the appointment from the University of Bremen as Chair for Innovative Brand Mangement (LiM^® ).

²works for the Boston Consulting Group in Hamburg, Germany as a senior management consultant. After her Bachelor's and Master's degree at the University of Münster, Germany and Zaragoza, Spain, she completed her doctorate on internal brand management at the Chair for Innovative Brand Management (LiM^®), University of Bremen, Germany in 2005.

³is an associate professor at the Chair for Innovative Brand Management (LiM^® ), University of Bremen, Germany. Having completed her Bachelor's degree, Diploma in Management Studies and Doctorate at the Judge Institute of Management Studies, University of Cambridge, she worked in the broking industry for ten years, first as a trainee at HSBC Samuel Montagu and HSBC James Capel, followed by eight years as a sales person for institutional equity investors at Citibank and Merrill Lynch.

Received 26 February 2008; Revised 26 February 2008; Published online 2 May 2008.

Abstract

This paper presents explorative, empirical data as a first step towards testing the holistic model of internal brand management previously developed by the authors. Based on the premise of identity-oriented branding, the authors statistically examine the factors behind the three key concepts of their internal brand management model: brand commitment, brand citizenship behaviour and the brand–customer relationship. The empirical analysis builds on three data sets examining six industry sectors. The three samples were generated by means of surveys of customers, employees and marketing professionals responsible for internal brand management. The results of the statistical analysis reveal the extent to which the hypothesised determinants and causal links between brand commitment, brand citizenship behaviour and brand strength (defined as the degree of behavioural relevance of the brand) hold: The hypothesised causal link between brand commitment and brand citizenship behaviour was empirically validated, whereas the purported relationship between brand citizenship behaviour and brand strength could be shown in tendency. Its causal link could not conclusively be proven as the size of the sample proved to be too small. The hypothesised constituents of brand commitment and brand citizenship behaviour, however, required substantial modification on the basis of the empirical evidence and hence require further empirical testing with a new data set.