The Internet of total corporate communications, quaternary corporate communications and the corporate marketing Internet revolution

ABSTRACT

The advent of what we call, ‘The Corporate Marketing Internet Revolution’ necessitates a radical rethinking of marketing practice and scholarship. As such, mindful of the importance of the Internet and, in particular, the Internet of Things (IoT) phenomenon, this article formally introduces and elucidates the Internet of Total Corporate Communications (IoTCC) notion. Moreover, it particularises the nature and importance of quaternary (fourth-order) total corporate communications. To date, the total corporate communications effect of the Corporate Internet Marketing Revolution has not been accorded importance in the extant literature. As such, this article seeks to address this omission.

KEYWORDS:

• Internet of Things (IoT)
• corporate communications
• corporate Internet marketing
• corporate marketing
• industrial revolution
• total corporate communications

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John M. T. Balmer

John M. T. Balmer is Professor of Corporate Marketing at Brunel University Business School London; quondam Professor of Corporate Brand/Identity Management at Bradford University School of Management and Director of the Marketing and Corporate Brand Research Group at Brunel University. Took his PhD at Strathclyde University in 2006 and within 3 years was elected to a personal (full) chair as Professor of Corporate Identity at Bradford University School of Management. Subsequently, he was conferred the title of Professor of Corporate Brand/Identity Management at the same institution in recognition of his pioneering scholarship in these fields. In 2007, he was appointed to a personal chair at Brunel University London where he was conferred the title Professor of Corporate Marketing. All three professorial appointments are understood to be the first of their kind. Recognised for his scholarship on corporate identity, he is credited with writing the first articles on corporate brands (1995) and corporate marketing (1998) and co-developed the corporate heritage notion (2006). He is the Chairman of the Board of Senior Consultant Editors of the Journal of Brand Management; sits on the senior advisory board of the Journal of Product and Brand Management and was a long-time member of the editorial board of the Journal of Marketing Management. He has edited/co-edited well over 20 special editions of academic journals. His articles have been published in California Management Review, British Journal of Management, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Business Research, Long Range Planning, Industrial Marketing Management, International Studies of Management and Organizations, Journal of Brand Management, Journal of General Management, among other journals. In 1994, he established the International Corporate Identity Group (ICIG). Launched in the House of Lords (Palace of Westminster, London), he is the Chairman and Conference Organiser of the ICIG: symposia have been held in Denmark, Malaysia, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland as well as at the Universities of Oxford, Strathclyde, Brunel, Essex and at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London. He established the International Corporate Heritage Symposium in 2011 and is its Chairman and Conference Organiser.

Dorothy A. Yen

Dorothy A. Yen is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at Brunel University London. She graduated from the University of Leeds with a PhD in Marketing in 2008. Her research focuses mainly on the examination of cross-cultural interactions at both b2b and b2c levels. She specialises in the business relationships between Anglo-Saxon suppliers and Chinese buyers and has a particular research interest in the Chinese relational notion of guanxi. Her works have been published in journals such as Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Marketing Management, Journal of General Management, Total Quality Management, The Marketing Review and Studies in Higher Education. Since completing her PhD, Dorothy has gained extensive academic experience from lecturing in several UK universities and she is currently an external examiner in Marketing at Middlesex University. She has reviewed papers for a number of academic journals such as Industrial Marketing Management and Journal of Business Research. Prior to her academic career, she worked for several years in Advertising and Market research both in Taiwan and in the UK.