Leadership and Brand Alignment

Abstract: The purpose of this journal is to describe and analyse both the corporate leader's and the brand’s visibility in order to understand the different types of alignment between corporate leaders and brands. The research has a qualitative and inductive approach and is conducted through a multiple-case study where four leaders and their respective brands were described and analysed. The four cases in this research are Elon Musk & Tesla, Kurt Hellström & Ericsson, Bert Karlsson & Jokarjo and Åke Bengtsson & Haldex. To illustrate the findings of the different alignments between leaders and brands, a matrix has been developed. The main finding of this journal is the different alignments between leaders and brands, which can be seen as a result of the degree of leadership- and brand visibility. The matrix presented can function both as a managerial tool in order to categorise the alignment between a leader and a brand, but also as a theoretical tool in order to address the research gap concerning visibility among these two research areas.