Building a strong brand presence is truly essential for a brand’s success in any industry, especially since almost every industry is highly competitive nowadays. A corporate identity is a vital part that contributes to the strength of a brand. The term “corporate identity” is more of a broad concept that includes everything from aesthetic design to a brand message. Most people either mistake corporate identity for brand identity or think a “corporate identity” sounds too formal for their brand but it’s not. Thus, let’s understand corporate identity together. We’ll get into its definition, what it is to brand identity and how we’re going to build a strong corporate identity. On top of this, we’ll be showcasing one of our successful branding projects along the way called CK Bidan.
What Is Corporate Identity in Branding?
So, to put it simply, a corporate identity is the visual and sensory representation of a brand’s beliefs, mission, culture, and personality. It’s the overall image of the brand, internally and externally, and how its consumers perceive it. A brand’s corporate identity usually includes both tangible characteristics such as logos, colours, typography, and marketing materials as well as intangible characteristics like brand values, voice, and behaviour. In a nutshell, it’s what makes a brand different from others in its industry, expressing unique attributes.
Is Corporate Identity & Brand Identity the Same?
Actually, the terms “corporate identity” and “brand identity” can be used interchangeably. However, they cover different parts of a brand’s overall branding. A brand identity usually just covers the visual representation or design elements of a brand like its logos, colours, fonts, and visual guidelines. On the other hand, a corporate identity expands into a brand’s values, mission, culture, and personality too. Basically, a brand identity is like the subsection of a brand’s corporate identity.
Know more about what’s a brand identity in our previous blog!
Significance of Corporate Identity in Branding
1. Creates Brand Awareness & Differentiation
Most, if not all, industries are getting very competitive as we journey into the future. Thus, a strong corporate identity helps brands stand out from the crowd by having and presenting their unique corporate identity. Plus, this leads to better brand awareness as well by strengthening brand recall and recognition.
2. Builds Brand Trust and Customer Loyalty
A distinguished corporate identity builds trust among customers, stakeholders, and employees while showcasing the organization’s professionalism and commitment to quality. Thus, not only is this beneficial to the brand but its customers and partners as well.
3. Enhance Marketing
It really helps a marketing team when a brand has a well-defined corporate identity. This is because designers, content creators, and digital marketers can connect their strategies and messaging with the established corporate identity. Consistency across marketing channels results in a united and consistent brand presence, making marketing operations more efficient and effective.
4. Employee Alignment
A strong and consistent corporate identity creates a sort of guideline for current and future employees. Overall, it helps everyone associated with the brand know its design guides, behaviours, values, and focus or purpose. This will also give employees a send of belonging while enabling smooth communications and serves as a guideline that can be utilized and updated as time goes by.
How to Create a Corporate Identity
Step 1: Define Your Brand Identity & Values
Determine your brand’s unique characteristics and core values as well as the main focus to serve as the foundation of your corporate identity. This will hopefully set the right path for the rest of the process.
Step 2: Design Compelling Visual Elements
Create a visually appealing logo, select appropriate colours, and choose typography that reflects your brand’s personality and resonates with your target audience. This will not only reflect how your brand is but also attract the right target audience.
Step 3: Develop Consistent Branding Guidelines
Start building your brand’s clear guidelines for logo usage, colour codes, typography styles, and other visual elements to ensure that all your current and future employees are clear with all the do’s and don’ts regarding your corporate identity across all touchpoints.
Step 4: Establish a Unique Tone of Voice & Messaging
Decide on a tone of voice that suits your brand and its personality. This will affect how your audience reacts and interacts towards your brand. Your tone of voice and your brand’s messaging should align with your corporate identity.
Step 5: Integrate Corporate Identity Across All Touchpoints
Make sure to apply and integrate your established corporate identity across all touchpoints. This ensures better brand recall and recognition and it’ll make your brand shine better and look more consistent.
Step 6: Monitor and Evolve as Needed
Continuously keep an eye on the effectiveness of your corporate identity, gather feedback, and stay informed about industry trends. Don’t be afraid to evolve and make adjustments or refinements when necessary to keep your corporate identity relevant and impactful.
Examples of Strong Corporate Identities
A couple examples of strong corporate identities include Spotify. Spotify’s style, focus, tone of voice and overall identity. Their marketing strategies have been more than successful and always favoured by their audience.
Source: Pinterest
Another example includes Coca-Cola. This is one of the largest beverage brands in the world and their corporate identity plays a huge role in contributing to that success. They’ve always been evolving too while making sure to stay classic to their iconic style as well. That’s only one of the reasons people still love them.
Source: Pinterest
Conclusion
To wrap this up, let us reiterate that a corporate identity goes beyond a brand’s design. It expands to encapsulate a brand’s values, tone of voice, focus and more. It’s how the brand wants to be perceived by its targeted audience. Building a strong corporate identity is essential for brand awareness, consumer loyalty, better marketing strategies and smooth employee alignment. Do keep in mind that even though a corporate identity has to be consistent, that doesn’t mean it has to stay static. Your brand and its identity may change and evolve over the years. Thus, flow with the evolution while staying true to the core of your brand. Other than that, if you ever need assistance with your corporate identity, you can always call CR8 Consultancy (wink wink). A corporate identity should always be something that you invest in so that it’s strong and memorable.
Need help building a strong corporate identity? Give us a call!
