In terms of effective branding, several recent trends have indicated the need for greater attention within the organisation than has traditionally been the case. With increased emphasis on corporate branding, the team responsible for managing a brand is becoming larger and more diverse and <i>all</i> staff, as the corporate brand's representatives, affect consumers' perceptions of the corporate brand. Furthermore, the shift in emphasis in the literature from the externally perceived brand image to the internally created brand identity entails actively creating how an organisation wishes to be perceived. To project a consistent corporate brand successfully to consumers, all staff need to have congruent perceptions about the brand's identity. The aim of this research was to identify internal factors influencing brand team members' and consumer-facing staffs perceptions of their brand's identity and the impact of these factors and perceptions on consumers' perceptions and brand performance. A conceptual model was developed and associated hypotheses formulated. Studies were conducted using postal questionnaires with three stakeholder groups in the financial services sector: (i) brand team members, (ii) consumer-facing staff and (iii) consumers. Although failing to identify correctly all of the intervening variables, support was found for sections of the conceptual model. The research confirmed that larger corporate brand teams increased the diversity of members' functional backgrounds. While brand teams composed of members with diverse functional backgrounds potentially have a wider range of knowledge and information available to them, diversity in brand team members' characteristics was found to impair the congruency of their brand perceptions. The importance of congruent brand perceptions among different stakeholder groups and the effect of congruent brand perceptions on brand performance were demonstrated. The results emphasised the need for improved internal brand communications and highlighted the influence of consumer-facing staff on consumers' brand perceptions.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to increase the knowledge about technology based services affection of the ability of retail banks to build customer based brand equity among students. Design/methodology/approach – A conceptual model has been developed from theories regarding customer based brand equity, switching barriers and choice criteria. Based on this conceptual model, seven in depth interviews including several brand elicitation techniques were conducted. Findings – The findings show that students perceive the target banks to be rather similar, especially regarding technologies. In addition, the students are satisfied with their bank, however; the technology based services have difficulties in creating true customer based brand equity. Behind this difficulties are the special character of financial service combined with the student role. Together, these results suggest that the banks need to do something besides the actual services in order to build customer based brand equity and keep the customers for a long term relationship. These strategies must be developed and implemented carefully in order to keep the current image of credibility. Research limitations/implications – The paper has not included comprehensive eliciting techniques and this must be taken into account when reflecting about unconscious brand associations.  Practical implications – The findings include good insights and advices that bank managers can use to create meaningful differentiations in the future and attract and keep students as customers for a long time.  Originality/value - The paper combines customer based brand equity with switching barriers, which give valuable insights to both banks and researchers. Moreover, the time period of the study related to the technological innovation provides the brand equity research in the financial sector with updated knowledge.