Brand salience is considered to be important in marketing and is usually measured in most market research studies. In the last few years, there has been an increasing interest in developing corporate brands, however, there is little empirical work in the academic literature on corporate brand salience. The study discussed in this article, has used a sample of Indian students, to empirically explore various facets of corporate brand salience. The authors have first examined the awareness of corporate brand names in terms of unaided recall. They have investigated the relationship of two sets of factors with the most salient corporate brand: Personal exposure to the company and indirect exposure through relatives, friends or media. Then, they have explored the perceptions that the sample held about the salient company in several areas including social responsibility, ethics, and competence. They have also explored students' preference for future involvement with this company in several areas ranging from product purchase and investment, to learning and final placements. They have used regression to examine the relationships between the students' perceptions about the company and their preferences. The implications of the results are also discussed.

The level of interest in the subject of branding and in brand-related topics has increased dramatically in the last two decades. Brands are considered as some of the most important assets of an organization. Managerial interest in brands has been stimulated by the possibilities of deriving financial and other benefits from investments in developing strong brands. Many academic studies have explored the marketing advantages of strong brands (Hoeffler and Keller, 2003). In recent years, there has been a substantial interest in corporate brands as distinct from product brands (Balmer and Gray, 2003; Aaker, 2004; Argenti and Druckenmiller, 2004; Knox and Bickerton, 2003).

Brand awareness is considered to be very important within the branding theory (Rossiter and Percy, 1991; Keller, 1993). Brand salience, which is one way of measuring brand awareness, is important within a marketing practice and is measured in most market research studies, especially those dealing with marketing communication. With importance being currently given to corporate brands, there is hardly any empirical work in the academic literature on corporate brand salience. This article describes an empirical study carried out on corporate brand salience in the Indian context using a sample of management students. The study covers an exploration of the companies which are salient to these students and the antecedents of the salience. It also explores perceptions of students regarding salient companies and investigates whether there is any relation between these perceptions and students' preferences for involvement with the companies in future.