19th ICIG Symposium 2016

The 19th symposium of the International Corporate Idenity Group (ICIG) will be hosted by the University of Essex, Colchester, UK. It will take place from 13th - 15th June 2016. The venue of the symposium is the exclusive 4* Wivenhoe House Hotel situated within Wivenhoe Park, which is also the home of the university. The theme of the 19th ICIG symposium is:

“Corporate/Organisational Marketing in the 21st Century: Challenges and Opportunities in Turbulent Times”.

2016 marks the 20th anniversary of the formal launch of the International Corporate Identity Group (ICIG) at the House of Lords, Palace of Westminster (London) in January 1996. After a succession of very successful symposia abroad (Slovenia, Switzerland, Spain, Denmark, Malaysia and South Africa) the ICIG returned to the UK in 2015.

With the last symposium in London we celebrated the group’s “coming of age”. In a celebratory atmosphere, the group reflected on key achievements of the ICIG over the last two decades. We reminded ourselves of the many contributions to the field of corporate identity, corporate branding, corporate reputation, corporate communication , corporate/organisational marketing and beyond that the ICIG and its supporters have been making ever since the first symposium in 1994. In particular, we honoured the legacy of Wally Olins and mourned the premature loss of Johan van Rekom whose wise words will be dearly missed by us and by anyone involved in our field. Both were long-standing supporters of the ICIG. 

After the more commemorative and retrospective theme of the last event, for the next symposium we will set our eyes firmly to the future of our field while not losing sight of the strong foundations that the ICIG and its past and current supporters have laid for us. For that purpose we once again return to England to signal continuity with the past but not London in order to also indicate the general spirit of departure and curiosity that will inform the general theme of the next ICIG symposium.

The University of Essex is a fitting place to host the next ICIG symposium as it has just celebrated its 50th anniversary as a progressive and forward thinking institution that has inspired generations of students to “challenge convention and think differently…”  The University of Essex is also a place where the past meets the future which is reflected in the modernist (brutalist) architecture set in the lovely Wivenhoe Park reminding us of John Constable’s England.

With the university’s legacy of inspiring social change and activism and its focus on human rights, progress and sustainable development it provides the fitting backdrop for discussing the challenges and opportunities that organisations face in a tumultuous, paradoxical and changing world. What are the implications of these developments for our fields, how can we shape emerging scholarly and societal debates and how can we have a much greater impact beyond academia? These are just a few of the questions we hope to discuss under the broad theme of the next ICIG symposium for which the University of Essex - the organisers believe - is an ideal setting.

Finally, the University of Essex is small but ambitious (punching above its weight); quite similar to the ICIG. Welcome to Essex!