The corporate identity and corporate image of KLM

It is increasingly vital for organisations to brand themselves in a positive and engaging manner to the outside world as the corporate reputation of an organisation determines to an important extent its success. This research shows how to use a framework of Van der Grinten (2010) in partly an online setting. A case study is conducted towards KLM to reveal their corporate identity and corporate image. With a gap analysis, the possible gaps between these aspects are determined. The identity derived from the management (desired identity), the employees (actual identity), the website and Facebook (online physical identity) and the audience (online image) is revealed with an analysis design of Van der Grinten (2010) which contains a mixed method approach. It appeared that this analysis design which is offline oriented is easily adaptable to an online field. The findings show that the identity among the management and the employees matches to a high extent. However some gaps are revealed between the identity that the management desires and the identity that comes forward on the website and Facebook. Another gap is revealed between the desired identity of the management and the online image among KLM’s Facebook audience.