Sunderland City Council: A Case Study of Brand Identity Development

In this paper we describe and map the process of brand identity development in a large UK public sector organisation. A growing body of research is focusing on organisational branding, however little published research has attempted to operationalise the development of a brand identity in a real business context. The inside-out approach to developing a brand identity which begins by developing a brand from within, before inculating core values to all employees, provides theoretical underpinnings for this paper. We present the results of a case study based on two years of action based research using an abductive approach which systematically combines theory and practice. The research was conducted within a single organization and as such the results are not generalisable to other businesses. However, the framework presented in this paper is already being successfully used by the paper's authors as they work on research and consultancy projects with other businesses.The framework for brand identity development that is described in this paper can be adopted and adapted by other academics, practitioners and consultants. Our detailed account of a UK local authority's inside-out brand identity development process offers valuable insights for practitioners as well as theorists and extends current academic knowledge.