Reverse-Market Orientation and Corporate Brand Development

In this paper we explore reverse-market orientation which we define as a market strategy that seeks more explicitly to align with customers to assist them in developing their optimum solution in a given marketplace. Starting from the premise that customers are now more empowered, we develop a model of customer value drivers to demonstrate how organizations with a reversemarket orientation can create and deliver new forms of customer value. We then describe how firms with this reverse-market orientation are addressing these value drivers and illustrate them with examples of early reverse-market practices. From a recent analysis of the corporate brand literature on the value and vulnerabilities of corporate brands, we explore the circumstances in which a reverse-market orientation could become an attractive strategic option for certain brand-led organizations. Through a framework we developed for corporate brand management interested in adopting a reverse-market orientation, we identify the new capabilities such firms will require to build their brand successfully. We conclude by evaluating the distinctiveness and importance of a reverse-market orientation against the traditional view of how market orientation has been conceived in the literature.