1334 Copyright © 2015, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. Chapter 66 Behavioral Branding as a Customer-Centric Strategy ABSTRACT Behavioral branding is an integral part of contemporary business strategy. It aims to align external brand promise with employees’ brand building. Two-way branding strategy reinforces the brand and increases customer satisfaction because people are the ones who convey the message regardless of their hierarchical level or job description. The purpose of this chapter is to provide conceptual discussion on the major issues of behavioral branding, to summarize the existing models so far developed in various conceptual and empirical studies, and to present the two-way branding strategy construct. It reviews the critical success factors of behavioral branding, and based on the arguments from the existing body of knowledge, presents strategy, internal communication, leadership, and the organizational culture as the most important and efective ones. Finally, the infuence of behavioral branding strategy on the marketing and fnancial performance of the company is discussed. INTRODUCTION Behavioral branding is the brand consistent employee behavior. It is an integral part of the company business strategy and particularly an important component of its branding strategy. In the last two decades, the research on behavioral branding has been growing and it is no longer an unexploited frontier, though marketing scholars and practitioners have not yet accepted unani- mously the definitions. Branding behavior can be considered a synonym for internal branding. The studies describe them in a similar way. Tomczak et al. (2009) states that “the behavioral branding basically deals with the brand-oriented activities of the company’s employees” (p. 6). Behavioral branding is a managerial task to direct employees’ behavior towards brand building and brand sus- Milanka Slavova University of National and World Economy Sofa, Bulgaria Neva Yalman Yeditepe University, Turkey DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-7357-1.ch066