To find where brand management must start. It is getting harder for companies to set their brands apart from competitors and to make customers prefer them. Yet some brands, such as Mini, Coca-Cola, Puma and Persil, keep customers loyal for a long time and can charge notably higher prices. For many makers of branded goods, brands are now their most valuable assets (Burmann et al., 2003, p. 1). So where must brand management start if it is to succeed in the long run? Burmann's answer is the identity of the brand. The approach goes back to his earlier work with Heribert Meffert. In 1996, the two had already presented a form of brand management built around identity. The 2003 working paper develops it further and takes from that joint work its basic idea and the features of identity (Burmann et al., 2003, pp. 1, 5, 16, 55). The 2009 article, too, credits the six components of identity to Meffert and Burmann (Burmann et al., 2009, p. 391). Kapferer and Aaker also see identity as what makes a brand authentic and sets it apart for the long term (Burmann et al., 2003, pp. 1–2).

To add the inside view to the outside view. The classic view looks at a brand from the outside in. It asks how buyers see the brand. This outside picture is the brand image. Burmann adds a view from the inside out. It asks how the people in the company behind the brand see it, such as employees, managers, owners and sales partners. This self-image is the brand identity (Burmann et al., 2003, p. 4). The inside view is also missing when brands are measured. Most models of brand equity, the value a brand has as an asset, take the buyer's view. Employees have received little attention, although Burmann and colleagues see them as "the original source of brand equity" (Burmann et al., 2009, p. 390). There is also a practical reason. Managers cannot directly access or control the image, but they can manage the identity directly (Burmann et al., 2009, p. 396).

To give brand management a complete process. Apart from Burmann's earlier work with Meffert, the authors knew of no complete, self-contained process for brand management in the literature (Burmann et al., 2003, p. 55). So their working paper sets out a process that allows brands to be built and managed professionally (Burmann et al., 2003, p. 2). Later, Burmann and colleagues also used the approach as the theoretical base for a brand equity model of their own. Most brand equity models, they argue, lack a sufficiently rigorous theoretical basis (Burmann et al., 2009, p. 390).

The approach rests on one idea. A brand exists as two pictures. The brand identity is the self-image held by the people inside the company behind the brand. Burmann calls them the internal target groups. The brand image is the picture held by customers and other people outside, the external target groups (Burmann et al., 2003, pp. 4–5). The figure shows the two pictures as two heads facing each other. The main task of brand management is to establish one shared picture of the brand in the heads of all insiders and outsiders. It does this by shaping and communicating all parts of the identity consistently and keeping them stable over time (Burmann et al., 2003, p. 9).

For Burmann, identity means the features that shape the brand's character for the long term in the eyes of the people inside. These features stay the same across places and over time (Burmann et al., 2003, p. 16). Identity comes first and is the basis for the image. So a brand can only be managed actively through its identity (Burmann et al., 2009, pp. 390–391). Six ideas shape the approach.

• Like a person's identity: as early as the 1930s, Domizlaff said that every brand has its own "face" (translated). Like a person, a brand is perceived as a whole. So its components must fit together into one consistent "Gestalt", a whole without contradictions that sets the brand apart from other brands (Burmann et al., 2003, p. 12). From Erikson's research on identity, Burmann takes four features that people and brands share: reciprocity, continuity, consistency and individuality. Identity forms only in contact with others, keeps its core over time, avoids contradictions and is unique (Burmann et al., 2003, pp. 15–16).
• The people behind the brand: in the social sciences, identity grows out of people dealing with each other and reflecting on themselves. So for Burmann, identity cannot belong to a brand seen as a lifeless bundle of signs. It belongs to the group of people behind the brand (Burmann et al., 2003, p. 16). These are above all managers and employees, but also sales partners and owners who work actively in the company (Burmann et al., 2003, p. 17).
• Built from the ground up: the left head stacks the six components. Origin is at the bottom and forms the base. Competences rest on the company's resources and abilities. They create the brand's edge over competitors and protect it. The offering decides how customers can use the brand. The vision guides how the identity is shaped, the values say what the brand believes in, and the personality sets how the brand communicates (Burmann et al., 2003, p. 17).
• Positioning as the bridge: positioning boils the identity down to a few key features that matter when outsiders decide what to buy (Burmann et al., 2003, p. 24). The offering shapes the functional benefit customers see, which is what the brand does for them in practical terms. Personality, values and vision mainly shape the symbolic benefit, which is what the brand means to them beyond that, such as prestige or belonging to a group (Burmann et al., 2003, pp. 8–9, 25).
• Credibility from the base: vision, values, personality and offering must fit the two components at the base, competences and origin. This fit decides whether the intended positioning is credible (Burmann et al., 2003, p. 25).
• A two-way exchange: identity forms in two ways. Inside, everyone who works for the brand reflects together on what it is. Outside, these people deal with others and see how they perceive this brand and other brands. So identity and image are in constant exchange, and both can change over time (Burmann et al., 2003, p. 17).

The right head is built from the bottom up as well. Awareness comes first, because people must know a brand before they can form an image of it. Following Vershofen and Keller, the image itself has three parts. The first part is the attributes, meaning all the features customers notice in the brand. From these they draw a functional and a symbolic benefit. From awareness up to the symbolic benefit, each step usually matters more for buying decisions (Burmann et al., 2003, pp. 6–7).

The English names of the six components vary between sources. The 2009 article renders the six components of Meffert and Burmann (1996, 2005) as heritage, organizational capabilities, values, personality, vision and core offering (Burmann et al., 2009, p. 391). A later book by Burmann and colleagues lists origin, mission and vision, competences, values, personality and offer. There, vision and mission form one component (Burmann et al., 2017, as cited in Tőkés, 2019, p. 64). The figure and the definitions below follow the 2003 working paper.

Burmann does not stop at the identity. He places it in a management process with three parts. The process plans, coordinates and checks everything done to build strong brands with all relevant target groups (Burmann et al., 2003, pp. 10–11).

• Strategic brand management: it starts with a situation analysis. This covers customer needs, the places where target groups meet the brand (brand touch points), how target groups see the brand compared with competitors, and the company's own abilities, resources and culture. Only a close fit between internal resources and identity makes the brand credible inside and outside (Burmann et al., 2003, p. 11). Then come company and brand goals for one to five years. The top goal is to raise the brand's value and the value of its customer base, the customer equity (Burmann et al., 2003, pp. 10–12). Next, the identity is designed with the six components. Four more steps follow. Brand architecture coordinates all of the company's brands. Then come the identities of its other brands, brand evolution and the brand organisation (Burmann et al., 2003, pp. 10, 25, 29).
• Operational brand management: here the identity is put into practice through the brand's offering, pricing, communication and distribution, and the brand is protected by law. Brand integration makes sure that all measures follow the identity defined before (Burmann et al., 2003, pp. 10, 34, 42).
• Brand controlling: it supplies everyone involved with information and checks how effective and efficient all brand activities are (Burmann et al., 2003, p. 11). At its centre is the relationship between brand and customer. It ends one round of the process and is the starting point for the situation analysis of the next (Burmann et al., 2003, pp. 44–45).

The 2009 article builds a brand equity model on the approach. The model measures the brand's strength on both sides. Inside, it asks how attached employees feel to the brand (brand commitment) and how far they "live the brand" in what they do (brand citizenship behaviour). Outside, it looks at the buyers' image of the brand and at how they talk about the brand and buy it. The model links both sides to the brand's financial value (Burmann et al., 2009, pp. 390, 392–393). The authors tested the model in a consultancy project for the brand of one division of a leading global technology company. As a result, the board made brand commitment one of its yearly management goals, with a target increase of 6.7% in the first year and 8.6% in the next (Burmann et al., 2009, p. 396).

Another author, Tőkés, applied the later version of the six components to the websites of three software and IT companies in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. For each component, Tőkés looked at what the firms have in common and what sets them apart. The firms shared technical competences and a focus on customers and relationships. They differed mainly in their values and personality (Tőkés, 2019, pp. 61, 69–70).

The sources point to four stumbling blocks (Burmann et al., 2003, pp. 21–23, 34, 42; Burmann et al., 2009, p. 396):

• An offering that does not fit: Burmann sees Jaguar's low-priced entry-level estate car as an offering that was not chosen to fit the other components. He therefore rates its market success as rather doubtful (Burmann et al., 2003, pp. 21–22). Sharing resources between brands can backfire too. Burmann's negative example is a Jaguar model in which customers could clearly see parts from the mass-market brand Ford (Burmann et al., 2003, p. 34).
• Personality left to the buyers: if nobody plans it, typical buyers can shape a brand's personality and harm the brand. This happened with the Opel Manta (Burmann et al., 2003, p. 23).
• Brand managers who come and go: when young, inexperienced brand managers change often, the brand can quickly grow weaker. To keep the brand steady, strategic brand management and brand controlling belong at the top of the company (Burmann et al., 2003, pp. 34, 42).
• A brand designed for outsiders only: most brand concepts are still designed for people outside the company. Management should also put them into practice inside the company, consistently and continuously (Burmann et al., 2009, p. 396).

• Image-based approaches: most brand equity models take the buyer's view. Their authors, for example Aaker and Joachimsthaler or Keller, see the source of brand equity in what buyers know about the brand. Burmann keeps this view but gives the view from the inside out equal weight (Burmann et al., 2009, p. 390). For the image side, he uses Keller's dimensions of brand image (Burmann et al., 2009, p. 391; Burmann et al., 2003, p. 7).
• Kapferer, Aaker and de Chernatony: Burmann places his approach alongside Kapferer and Aaker, who also see identity as what makes a brand authentic and sets it apart (Burmann et al., 2003, pp. 1–2). The 2009 article lists their models and de Chernatony's next to the six components of Meffert and Burmann. Despite minor differences, all agree that the identity directly influences the image (Burmann et al., 2009, p. 391). Like Kapferer, Burmann puts identity on the side of the sender, the company that sends out the brand's signals. The image is what results when others decode and interpret these signals (Burmann et al., 2009, p. 396).
• Other ideas of what a brand is: Burmann sees a brand as a bundle of functional and symbolic benefits. It sets itself apart for the long term from other offers that meet the same basic needs. He contrasts this with approaches that see a brand only as a bundle of signs that can be protected by law, as a picture in consumers' minds, as a legal right or as a branded product (Burmann et al., 2003, p. 3). In his view, identity cannot belong to a lifeless bundle of signs, only to the people behind the brand (Burmann et al., 2003, p. 16).