ABSTRACT
This chapter covers the views on energy branding by Ryan O’Keeffe, Managing Director of BlackRock’s London office. BlackRock is the world’s biggest investment fund, managing around seven trillion dollars in assets. The discussion takes in the analysis of brand names according to theories of linguist and company naming expert Christopher Johnson, before examining how energy market deregulation intensified the involvement of asset management companies in the energy sector. O’Keeffe compares branding communications both across cultures and from the vantage point of different actors within the energy sector. The concept of “global brand architecture” is discussed, and identified, according to academic work on the subject as a “quality signal”. This is followed by an exposition of the notion of “business-to-human” (B2H), as juxtaposed in a branding context to “business-to-business” (B2B) or “business to consumer” (B2C). The chapter concludes with remarks on Gini Dietrich’s PESO (paid, earned, shared and owned) model of public communication.
