Branding without Unique Brands: Managing similarity and difference in a public sector context

Abstract

Corporate branding requires organizations to focus on uniqueness and differentiation. At the same time, public institutions must provide equal services in order to gain legitimacy. Hence, corporate branding in the public sector organizations has to handle two concerns simultaneously – securing legitimacy and building reputation. We examine this tension through interviews with communication managers in Norwegian hospitals. Despite large investments in techniques borrowed from corporate branding, the informants were reluctant to talk about branding. Instead, they were more oriented towards the universal character of their hospitals. Four explanations are put forward for why branding has an ambiguous position in Norwegian hospitals.

Key words:

• Public sector branding
• reputation
• differentiation
• public sector reforms

Notes

1 A diagnosis-related group (DRG) is part of a prospective payment system in hospitals.

2 The Colosseum Clinic is a large private clinic in Norway, specializing in plastic surgery.

3 Although the data were collected in 2008, we still believe the conclusions in this article are valid for communication practices in Norwegian hospitals of today. The organizational structure of communication departments are the same (Kjekshus and Bernstrøm 2010), and the mechanisms for patient’s choice and patient movement have not changed significantly for the last five years. Even if the numbers of health enterprises have decreased to twenty-one (due to mergers in 2011), the National Audit Office (2011) finds that still less than fifteen per cent of Norwegian patients make use of the arrangement of Free hospital choice. Further, hospitals are characterized by robust values and norms, and the work practices and infrastructure in hospitals tend to be ‘impregnated’ towards organizational change (Knudsen and Vinge 2003). Hence, we argue that the mechanisms that are revealed in this article are still valid.