Professor John Balmer
Honorary Professor - BBS

Summary

Professor John M.T. Balmer is a Professor Emeritus and Honorary Professor at Brunel Business School. Until 2023 he held a personal chair as Professor of Corporate Marketing at Brunel University London. His research focusses on  corporate marketing, corporate brand management, corporate identity, and the corporate heritage fields where he enjoys international renown. He is known as the "father of the corporate brand concept" and co-developed the corporate heritage field. From 2010-2020 he was the Director/Head of the Marketing and Corporate Brand Research Centre/Group at Brunel Business School.

Leading international scholar

In both 2021 and 2022 he was recognized as one of the world's top 2% of influential scholars (in a study of more than 100.000 scholars undertaken by  Stanford University). In 2023 he was ranked as one of the top 70  business and management scholars in the UK and ranked as a top 400 leading business and management scholar globally (research.com). For the last three years has been ranked as one of the UK's top 100 business academics and in 2024 was ranked as one of the top 5 marketing academics working in London (and 15th for business generally) according to Research.com.

His published work has been cited more than 27,689 times and he has a google h-index of 63 and an i-10 index of 132. 

Currently,  his academic articles have achieved 584,165 reads on the ResearchGate (a social networking site for academic scholars and and researchers). 

Current and Former Positions

Professor Balmer was  a Visiting Professor at the National University of Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur) and was  an External Assessor for senior staff promotions for  the Department of Marketing at the University of Malaya (which is viewed as Malaysia's premier university). He is Quondam Professor of Corporate Brand/Identity Management at Bradford School of Management and was a Visiting Professor at the same school.

Professor Balmer is Chairman of the Board of Senior Consultant Editors of the Journal of Brand Management and is a Senior Advisory Board Member of the Journal of Product and Brand Management. 

University Education and Pioneering Professorial Positions

After a first degree from the University of Reading, and after two periods of postgraduate study at The University of Durham initially focussing on education whilst a member of in University College,  and then, subsequently, concentraing on management whilst at Collingwood College. Professor Balmer took his PhD at Strathclyde University in 1996. His doctorate  focussed on the identity traits of the BBC. Within three years of his PhD graduation was elected to a personal chair as Professor of Corporate Identity at Bradford University School of Management: the first of three personal chairs held by him. He subsequently was conferred the title of Professor of Corporate Brand/Identity Management in the same University in recognition of his seminal scholarship on both the corporate brand/corporate identity territories. In a similar vein, in 2007, he joined the faculty at Brunel University London where he was appointed to a personal chair as Professor of Corporate Marketing (2007-2023).  

Thus Professor Balmer has the unique distinction of holding the first full professorships in the world in corporate branding, corporate identity, corporate brand/identity management, and corporate marketing.

Corporate Branding Projects for the Swedish Monarchy and the University of Strathclyde

His colleaborative, ground-breaking study of the Swedish Monarchy (where audiences were granted with Their Majesties the King and Queen of Sweden, The Crown Princess of Sweden, and with Court officials, over a two year period), resulted in a series of recommendations on managing the crown as a corporate brand. He continues his scholarly interest in monarchies as corporate brands.

As a lecturer at Strathclyde University, in the early 1990s, he led the first branding exercise of the University which led to the common use of a heraldic shield along with the naming of the University's city campus "The John Anderson Campus" in honour of the institution's founder. Subsequently, he conceived and oversaw the corporate brand positioning of the University of Strathclyde including having oversight for the process involved in the introduction of a full achievement of arms and motto ("Useful Learning") from the Court of Lord Lyon at the time of the University of Strathclyde's bi-centenary celebrations in 1996. He also. in 1996, had oversight of a special Congregation of the University (including ceremonial arrangements and music) during which the Letters Patent granting a full coat of arms was presented to the University's Chancellor by one of the Queen's heralds.

Media Interest

Professor Balmer has been interviewed for, and cited/quoted in, The Financial Times,The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, the leading German newspaper Die Welt', the German business magazine Capital, Spain's Radio Television Espanola, Qatar's Al Jazeer, the Brazilian newspaper Valor Economico and the French financial paper Les Echos.

In 2023 he was accorded the distinction of being the focus of a regular feature of leading global academics in India's Economic Times (Times of India) for his seminal work of the monarchy as a corporate brand.  

To date, three articles have been published in "The Coversation" on the British Monarchy: "From Corona beer to the coronation: the crown is branding fit for a king" (2 May, 2023); "Royal Warrants and good for business - and benefit the monarchy too" (22 December 2022); and "How Queen Elizabeth II made the British Monarchy into a global brand" (13 September, 2022).

Course Development/Teaching

Since 1990, at Brunel, Bradford, and Strathclyde Universities he conceived and developed courses in the corporate identity, corporate brand management, and corporate marketing fields.

At Brunel University he was the Founding Director of the MSc in Corporate Brand Management. He oversaw the conception, design, and implementation for the current syllabus for the MSc in Corporate Brand Management. The latter is the only postgraduate degree of its kind internationally. He had the unique distinction of having taught of this degree course since its inception in 2007 until September 2023.

Known as  a passionate and consummate teacher and PhD supervisor and, on a number of occassions, was  recongised by the Dean for his exemplary teaching on the MSC in Corporate Brand Management  

Publications

Professor Balmer has published in many leading journals - often as a sole or as a lead-author  -including  California Management Review, British Journal of Management, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Business Ethics,   Long Range Planning,  Marketing Theory, Information Technology & People, International Studies of Management and Organization,  Journal of Marketing Management. Journal of General Management, Journal of Brand Management etc.

In 2017 Professor Balmer was invited by the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (editor: Professor Sir David Cannadine) to pen the authoritative biographical essay of Wally Olins CBE (1930-2014) - the doyen of the corporate identity/brand consultancy industry (OUP: 2018).

His books include "Revealing the Corporation" (co-authored with Professor Stephen A. Greyser of Harvard Business School, Routledge, 2003); "Foundations of Corporate Heritage" (Routledge, 2016);  "Advances in Corporate Branding" (co-edited with Dr Shuan Powell,  Professor  Joachim Kernstock & Professor Tim Brexendorf, Palgrave, 2017); "Advances in Chinese Brand Management" (co-edited with Weifeng Chen, Palgrave, 2017); "Contemporary Perspectives on Corporate Marketing" (co-edited with Professor Laura Illia & Allmudena de Valle Brena, Routledge, 2013); and "Contemplating Corporate Marketing, Identity & Communication" (co-edited with Professor Klement Podnar, Routledge, 2010).

Ranked as the 2nd  most published author in the European Journal of Marketing and two of his articles are the most cited in this journal viz: "Corporate identity, corporate branding and corporate marketing: seeing through the fog" and "Corporate brands: What are they? What of them?". He is the 3rd most published author in the Journal of Brand Management.  Additionally, his single-authored article, "Corporate identity and the advent of corporate marketing" is the 7th most cited article in the Journal of Marketing Management.

Qualifications

• PhD: Doctor of Philosophy (University of Strathclyde, Scotland)
• MBA (Dunelm): Master of Business Administration (University of Durham-Collingwood College, England)
• BA (Hons): Bachelor of Arts with Honours (University of Reading, England)
• PGCE (Dunelm): Postgraduate Certificate in Education (University of Durham-University College, England)
• DipM: Diploma in Marketing (Chartered Institute of Marketing-London, England)
• AMusTCL: Teaching Diploma (Trinity College, London).

Responsibility

• Founder and Chairman/Conference Organiser of the International Corporate Identity Group "ICIG"( est 1994).      
• Founder and Chairman/Conference Organiser of the International Corporate Heritage Symposium (est 2012).     
• Chairman of the Board of Senior Consulting Editors: Journal of Brand Management
• Senior Advisory Board Member: Journal of Product and Brand Management