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corporate identity
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Corporate Identity |
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Almost every designer encounters the issue »corporate identity« sooner or later. What it is about, however, is not only mysterious to many clients but also to many designers: a lot of energy is invested in aesthetics, but it is not recognized how strongly the development of a corporate identity affects all parts of a company. Every day, and almost constantly, we are confronted with a gigantic amount of information. We are permanently perceiving stimuli with our senses; we have to recognize them, order and react to them. Our brain is only able to handle this overflow by strongly selecting the most important stimuli. Most criteria according to which our brain filters the incoming information, however, are not fixed but flexible. This situation causes problems for companies and organizations. While there was only one relevant telecommunications company in Germany a few years ago, dozens of such companies populate the market today. And while there were only a handful of women’s magazines in the past, a woman can choose among lots of magazines today. Consumers thus have to process more and more information before deciding which product to buy. In this context, the company »behind« a product is becoming more and more important, for its identity is strongly affecting our purchase decisions. Products come and go, but the company remains as a constant. Its position in our value system therefore is an important consumer criterion. Corporate communication has to build and develop such a position. An important goal of effective corporate communication is the establishment of trust: trust in the product, trust in the future orientation and the abilities of the company, trust in everybody who is part of it, shortly: trust in the brand. This establishment of trust doesn’t happen automatically. One has to work hard for it and measure up for it again and again. In a market full of information, a company’s profile must be distinguished and consistent. Only then will it be perceived and positively identified in the long run. The basis of this strategy is corporate identity. It allows sustainable and understandable corporate communication. The corporate-identity process makes sense regardless of the size or situation of the company or organization. It is a scalable strategic approach tailored towards specific goals of the corporation and its customers.The core of an identity is »individuality«. With respect to a company, this mainly refers to the ability to differentiate and recognize the company in all media and channels of communication. Importantly, this »consistency« mustn’t come with uniformity. Whether or not the result of a conscious decision, every company has a certain personality from the beginning. How it is led, which goals it has, and how they are realized determine the company’s character, its identity. Every company should take the time to check whether its actual identity (still) conforms to its goals and its current as well as future social-economic environment. A closer look at a corporate identity often reveals that changes in the company’s goals are not utilized because they are not recognizable from the outside. Potential advantages over the competition are not realized in such cases: an example is a small long-established handicraft business that has acquired advanced technologies but doesn’t communicate them and wonders why the market doesn’t react to these advances. Another example is a metal company that has become a telecommunications giant as a result of buying and selling shares, which is however still perceived by the public as an old-fashioned inactive tanker. Contents and communication obviously don’t match in these examples and cause confusion. These companies don’t have a consistently followed identity. They hence don’t have a clear, distinguished, and trustworthy profile. To create a coherent and convincing picture, a company has to know exactly what it is, what it can do, and where it wants to go. These are the most important elements of the corporate-identity process. These questions have to be clarified at the beginning, for which it is essential to consciously look into the company, its goals, its employees, and its competition. The company’s identity has to be developed and defined on the basis of its strategic goals, its strengths, as well as the expectations of its customers and partners. To be effective, this identity must be communicated authoritatively and clearly. Corporate identity has typically and wrongly been reduced to visual appearance, i.e. corporate design – it has been set equal to designing a logo, a letter head, a brochure, or a new luminous sign on the company’s roof.This basic misconception has led to the situation that uncountable amounts of money are thrown away for superficial »make-ups«. This may save some money and time in the short term, but it is a misinvestment in the mid and long term. Thousands of corporate designs have been created in this way. When the financial budget is tight and quick successes are crucial, many managers avoid the complex corporate-identity process. Such short-term thinking does not agree, however, with strategically leading a company. Corporate design is only a part of corporate identity. The identity of a company includes much more than just its visual appearance. It describes the company’s self-conception and is thus composed of a multitude of elements, e.g. orientation, philosophy, and communication. These have to be clarified and organized. Only a structured and ruthless analysis is helpful in identifying and shaping the company’s personality, differences from its competition – and finally also its visual appearance. Bluntly said, think before you act! Designs that were developed without a corporate-identity process usually become a burden in the mid and long term because they lack sustainability and are not really representing the company’s core. Therefore, a corporate-identity program is predominantly a management tool that can be used to identify and control the structure, contents, and personality of a company. In other words, it is a market- and social-strategic element for managing a brand. Managing a brand means much more than just developing a good product. Each corporation, voluntarily or involuntarily, represents a certain image in the market; the corporation is unique in its way, has a distinct personality. The elements of this personality and its specific characteristics are, however, unclear to many corporations – they cannot therefore be effectively communicated in the market. As a result, most companies don’t even try this communication and focus their efforts on the fabrication of their products or the development of their services. Yet to be successful in the long term, each organization must be aware of its purposes and goals and must communicate them to its employees and others in order to create a feeling of affiliation and trust.This goal can be reached if the corporate identity is the measure for every of the company’s activities. Hence, corporate identity is not the logo or the brochures, but the deliberate synchrony of the company’s activities. Everything the company does or says is based on its identity, builds it up, strengthens or weakens it. For this reason, all parts of the company must credibly mirror the company’s values and goals. This is especially true for the quality and design of the products or services, the architecture of buildings and sales places, the layout of communication media, and the way employees and customers are treated. Each of these elements is a part of the whole and affects the other parts, for the company communicates with everything it does or doesn’t. Each element and each communication medium influences our picture of the company. A higher constancy leads to a clearer picture. The development of an identity and its consequent implementation therefore has not only visual consequences for the company but predominantly affects structure and content. The visualization is a result of this development, but never its origin. Due to its importance, corporate identity must be managed by the head of the company. It is the only authority in the company that has enough power and knowledge to start and implement such a project. Three aspects are particularly important for a successful implementation: 1. AffiliationThe company should present itself clearly and straightforwardly, being easy to understand for current and potential future customers, employees, suppliers, the press, and investors. 2. Personality The company should clearly communicate its values and principles so that everybody (internally and externally) is aware of them.3. PositioningThe company should develop its products and services on the basis of its identity and should clearly discriminate them from the competition (according to Wally Olins). An important goal of effective communication is building up trust: trust in the product, trust in the future orientation and abilities of the company, trust in everybody who is part of it, in short: trust in the brand. Building up this trust doesn’t happen automatically, but is the result of hard work and must be worked upon every day. In a market full of information, a company must appear distinctly and consistently. Only in this way can it be recognized in the long term and positively identified. The content behind this process is provided by the corporate identity. It allows for sustainable and understandable communication. The size and situation of the company or organization thereby is irrelevant: the corporate-identity process is a scalable strategic approach tailored towards specific goals of the corporation and its customers. To communicate a credible picture, the corporate identity must be mirrored in all of the company’s parts. It is the basis of all communicative, developmental-technical, and personal-political activities. It functions as a leading strategy. It delivers programmatic and communicative input for the internal and external presentation of the company and thus its perception, i.e. the corporate image. The corporate identity mainly controls and defines three areas which depend on each other: Corporate Design – the visualization Corporate Communications – the message Corporate Behavior – the conduct Companies are perceived as a whole – neither message, design, nor conduct can hence be developed independently. Rather, it is important to develop all areas continuously and in synchrony, keeping the balance between them. Corporate Identity thus is a very dynamic process, always oriented at the company’s development. © Robert Paulmann |
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