The product is promoted for anyone who spends a lot of time indoors with crowds, and this means it is marketed especially for use in airports, planes, trains, and similar venues. As the promotional material states, "Crowded environments like Airplanes, Offices, and Schools are spawning grounds for germs that cause colds and sickness! Take at the first sign of a cold symptom or before entering crowded environments!" (Airborne, 2005, para. 1). In reporting on the primary users of the product, Knight-McDowell indicates much about its target market:

Frequent flyers, business people, teachers, vacationers, working actors, professional and amateur athletes, flight attendants, hospital workers, Hollywood celebrities, people working in closed ventilation systems, commuters, students, restaurant & theater goers, and ANYONE for whom good health is a top priority (Airborne, 2005, Who uses Airborne?).

This product was developed by a school teacher, not a scientist, and was first sold in 1997. The product is made up of vitamins and such additives as zinc, selenium, and herbs including forsythia, ginger, isatis root, and echinacea. Airborne is an herbal remedy intended to prevent colds from developing, and since the company does not claim that the product cures colds once they develop, Food and Drug Administration approval was not required and no testing has been done by the FDA (Konrad, 2003, para. 15).

The corporate image created immediately was related to the back story of a school teacher making a product fro scratch and finding a company to produce and distribute it, not an entirely true story, but a highly effective one, creating an image of the underdog achieving more by not being "corporate" at all. The product has sold well and made the founders of the company wealthy, though claims for the product are now being challenged. Still, the image has been a success.

However, the legal issues that might be raised can be a real threat to the corporate image. The corporate image of a company like Enron was high until the truth about the business was revealed, after which...

A recent report shows that maintaining a good corporate image is important not just for customers but for potential employees, who reported that they would "rather work for a company with a strong reputation - even if it meant passing up a larger salary at other companies with lesser reputations" (Study reveals corporate reputation links to operational success, 2005, para. 3). Many companies have failed when their reputation tarnished their image to such a degree that their employees as well as their customers withdrew.
Developing a brand image today is being undertaken in a different way in a new medium, specifically on the Internet. A company that can create a viable brand name, such as Google or Amazon, are successful.

Numerous less successful corporate images fall by the wayside every day.