A professional home for reputation and image management.
Imagetude is an independent institute that defines, teaches and certifies the management of reputation and mental image, and its link to marketing. We work the way the established professional institutes work: a published body of knowledge, a learning path, and a credential that proves it.
Reputation is more than public relations.
It is a strategy the whole organisation carries out,
and it is the responsibility of top management.
Every department sends messages that shape how people see you: the product, the price, the service desk, the invoice, the way a complaint is handled. Public relations can explain an image, but it cannot build one alone. That is why RIMBOK places reputation in corporate strategy and governance, and why every Imagetude method starts at the top.
Make image a managed asset
Reputation and mental image decide how customers, partners and the public respond to an organisation, yet they are rarely managed with the rigour given to finance, projects or quality. Our mission is to give professionals a shared language, a tested method and a recognised credential for managing them.
One standard, recognised worldwide
We want RIMBOK to be the reference that practitioners, employers and educators turn to when they need to build, protect or repair the image of a product, a service, an organisation or a person, in any country and any sector.
Five services, one discipline
The body of knowledge
RIMBOK sets out the concepts, the Imagetude pyramid, the three-dimension model and the CATASPACE and RAIO methods in one structured reference, revised in numbered editions.
Study guides
Shorter companion books, such as the Foundation guide, explain the body of knowledge in plain language with figures, cases and practice questions.
Professional certificates
A graded path from the Foundation Certificate to the RIMBOK Certificate, earned through online exams drawn from the Institute's question bank.
Research
Our frameworks are tested in the field. The first study measured how 306 customers judged a real estate developer during a real delivery crisis. See the findings.
Advisory work
Organisations can ask the Institute for help applying CATASPACE to a product, a brand or a crisis, and for multi-user licences of our publications. Contact us.
Start here
New to the subject? Read the free sample of the Foundation guide, then move on to RIMBOK.
Browse the booksHow we work
These principles apply to everything the Institute publishes, teaches and certifies.
1. Independent assessment
Exams are set from a reviewed question bank and are kept separate from teaching. Anyone who writes or reviews exam questions may not sit the exam those questions belong to. A certificate states what a candidate has shown in the exam, nothing more.
2. Evidence before claims
Our frameworks are grounded in published literature and in our own field research, and every edition cites its sources. When the evidence changes, the body of knowledge changes with it.
3. Honest statements about the Institute
We describe the Institute as it is. We do not claim an accreditation, membership or partnership until it has been formally granted in writing, and we will announce any such recognition on this site with the name of the body that granted it.
4. A living standard
RIMBOK is published in numbered versions. Each certificate states the edition it is based on, so candidates always know what they are examined on.
5. Neutral and global
The body of knowledge is written in English for use in any country and any sector. Cases are drawn from many markets and are chosen to explain an idea, not to praise or criticise a brand.
6. Ethics and privacy
Certificate holders agree to our Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct. We use personal data only to serve the person who gave it, as set out in our privacy policy.
See the ideas at work.
Short cases from our books, and what our research found.