This book articulates a new theoretical approach to branding, labelled
the Communication as Constitutive of Brands (CCB) approach. This
approach combines understandings from the CCO (Communication as
Constitutive of Organization) perspective with the branding literature.
The author outlines the evolution of corporate branding theory that has
developed from an identity approach rooted in signalling theory to an
understanding of brands as co-created by multiple stakeholders. She then
develops and elaborates the latter approach by formulating and
explicating the CCB approach, within which a brand is conceptualized as
a discursive brand space grounded in a performative and interactional
ontology. Brand discourses are produced in a number of conversational
spaces inhabited by both human and non-human actors. Seeing that
non-human actors have agency, hybrid agency and ventriloquism are key
notions in the CCB approach, and the role of the brand manager is to
function as a practical author. The CCB approach is explicated and
sustained by five chapters that each elaborate on a certain aspect of
CCB and demonstrate the theoretical points in a number of analyses (the
process of brand creation, the set-up of conversational spaces, the role
of materiality and macro-actors, frame games, and the brand manager as a
practical author). The data in the analyses originates from a case that
is used throughout the book.
Written for scholars and university students within the field of
branding and organizational communication, this book represents an area
of developing interest within the field of marketing.
