Abstract—The present research aimed at recognizing the indexes of brand orientation in service organizations and discussing their effects on creating a competitive advantage for a service organization and developing a strong service brand.150 experts and managers of the business and marketing units of Airlines were chosen to attend the current project. Data analysis was performed using structural equation modeling. The results indicate that brand orientation indexes in service organizations including brand symbolization, Brand identity, internal marketing and implementation of integrated marketing communications, lead to a strong service brand development and differentiation from competitors in the marketplace. Furthermore attitudes of senior managers to brand orientation as an investment approach affects their participation in branding process thus it provides a situation for brand orientation improvement in the organization. According to this research, Competitive advantage and differentiation from competitors are attained as a result of developing a strong service brand. Index Terms—Brand development, brand orientation, Brand oriented organization, service organization. I. INTRODUCTION Brand orientation is an approach in which the processes of the organization revolve around the creation, development and protection of brand identity in an ongoing interaction with target customers with the aim of achieving lasting competitive advantages in the form of brands [1]. Recently Brand orientation has been introduced as a possible way to conduct the branding process. The main purpose of this concept is to measure how an organization should control and conduct its internal activities to develop a sustained strong brand [2]. Brand orientation is an inside out approach that knows brand as core business strategies and activities. In this approach while customers’ needs and wants are known, brand comes first and its values and promises are core strategic point [1]. The aim in brand oriented organizations is to create values in a brand framework. The brand is a strategic platform for interplay with the target-group thus it is not limited to being an unconditional response to what at any moment is demanded by customers [3]. While most of researches are around market orientation [4]-[8] the studies with subject in the field of brand orientation are less and all of them are done in companies with Manuscript received June 28, 2016; revised December 12, 2016. Shirin Salehi is with University of MehrAlborz, Iran (e-mail: sh.salehi@mehralborz.ac.ir). Amir Ekhlassi is with Faculty of Entrepreneurship, University of Tehran, Iran (e-mail: amekhlassi@ut.ac.ir) physical products [1]-[19] there is no research with the case of brand orientation in service organizations as well. In general, researchers believe that service branding and product branding are two distinctive methods [20]. In service branding power is related to staffs that inherently need organizational wide commitment to the brand that means brand orientation [19]. Service employees should support the brand message by their behaviors to ensure consistency between brand promises and service quality. Airlines as an example of Service Companies are offering a variety of services such as passenger services, cargo services, including cargo export import training of ground, safety services. These companies have been investigated according to brand orientation and related concepts due to strong domestic and international brand existence in this field of research and related concepts are examined from the standpoint of brand orientation. Nowadays the creation of a sustainable competitive advantage for a business is not only achievable through the introduction of clear and tangible privileges. This concept in service businesses due to the intangible nature of services becomes more relevant. Thus organization brand which is a set of intangible and practical privileges can be a determining element in creating sustainable competitive advantage for service organizations. Variable and unstable quality of the services that is because of its intangible and inseparable nature, makes branding different. Moreover at the same time it raises the need for using brand to deliver tangible and conceptualized benefits. The present study is aimed at understanding the dimensions of brand orientation in service organizations and its effect on the creation of competitive advantage for the organization and developing a strong service brand. The significant role of employees in service organization for the sake of delivering the brand identity to the customer is an inevitable fact due to the nature of the service, so in this study is considered on the dimensions of brand orientation and convey of bran4s concepts within the organization. As it has been argued in this paper brand orientation has been proposed as an approach for guiding and controlling branding process in airlines due to the service nature of their activities. This study can be effective on developing brand orientation approach in field of service organizations. The results of brand orientation approach in service organizations are strong service brand development and differentiation of competitors in the market. Brand development is an extended and continuous process which is created as a result of effective communicative brand orientation aspects that begins within the organization and spreads in the market. Brand orientation aspects make the prerequisites of a strong service brand development to create a competitive advantage. A Brand Oriented Model in Service Organizations with an Emphasis on Airlines Shirin Salehi and Amir Ekhlassi Journal of Economics, Business and Management, Vol. 5, No. 1, January 2017 54 doi: 10.18178/joebm.2017.5.1.485