Corporate brands are the names of companies that are positioned and promoted as standalone brands. For example, L’Oréal, Danone, Nestlé, Renault, Bouygues, and Auchan are all corporate brands. Before the rise of the corporate brand concept, some large consumer goods companies with a range of product brands simply used a company name, sometimes little known to the general public, which was not necessarily registered or promoted as a separate brand.

A notable example in France was the BSN group, later renamed BSN Gervais Danone before adopting the name Danone in 1994, thus implementing a corporate brand strategy. Using a corporate brand allows for synergies in communication efforts and lends product brands the credibility of the parent brand, through strategies such as umbrella branding.