The symposia of the ICIG (The International Corporate Identity Group) have an enviable and quite distinctive provenance: the first ICIG symposium took place at Strathclyde University Business School in 1994. The ICIG was formally launched at The House of Lords, Palace of Westminster London in January 1996 following the “Strathclyde Statement” on Corporate Identity crafted in 1995. Since then, the ICIG has developed into an informal community of corporate branding, identity, reputation, image, culture, communication and marketing researchers and practitioners.
Its purpose is to provide a forum for academic and practitioner insight on the domain where research, scholarship and, best-practice vis-a-vis related corporate-level concepts such as corporate and organisational identity, corporate branding, corporate communication, corporate image, corporate reputation and corporate social responsibility can be discussed.
The ICIG, although proud of its British roots, is interdisciplinary and international in scope, membership and ethos. Professor John M.T. Balmer is the ICIG Chairman and its founder and has individually and collaboratively organised annual symposia with ICIG colleagues since its launch.
To date, symposia have been held at leading business schools and universities in the UK, Europe and beyond such as Strathclyde Business School (Scotland); Oxford University (England), Bradford School of Management (England), Brunel University (England), Ljubljana University (Slovenia), University of St Gallen (Switzerland), IE Business School (Spain), Aarhus University (Denmark), Universiti Putra Malaysia (Malaysia) , University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business (South Africa) and have taken place at prestigious venues such as the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre (London), Brown’s Hotel (London), The Balmoral Hotel (Edinburgh), and at The Seattle Hotel (Brighton).
The ICIG works hard to maintain the small size (around 20-25 delegates) and exclusive character of the symposia so that a country house type atmosphere and a scholarly and supportive modus operandi are maintained. Attendance at the event is by invitation only and only scholars who take a collegial approach are invited or are re-invited.
Many leading academics have presented papers at the above events and key note speakers have included a former EU Commissioner, Lord King, Lord Marshall (both of British Airways), the Chairman of Barclays Bank and the Assistant Chairman of the Abbey Building Society. Senior managers and directors from well-known companies and other organisations have taken part in our events (for example, Arla Foods, Babcock, Barclays Bank, British Airways, BSI Bank, City of Cape Town, Enel, Grundfos, Holcim, Nokia, RBS, Royal Mail) along with leading marketing, identity and brand consultants such as Sir Robert Worcester, Wally Olins, David Bernstein, Adrian Day, Nicholas Ind, Clive Chajet, Jacob Benbunan and other representatives from consultancies (for example, Landor Associates, Wolff Olins, Saffron, Interbrand, Metadesign, CloserLondon).
The symposia organised by the ICIG have, since the mid-1990s, led to special editions of leading journals on the area such as the European Journal of Marketing, California Management Review, Journal of Business Ethics, International Studies of Management and Organizations, Management Decision, Journal of Brand Management, Corporate Communications: An International Journal, Corporate Reputation Review and the International Journal of Bank Marketing.