Corporate identity: the five most important aspects and how you apply them

A corporate identity (CI) is not just something that a company conjures up. A corporate identity requires planning, should include the whole company, and will require both time and financial effort. At the same time, the corporate identity should express the company’s self-image through the guide­lines and values that run through all areas of the business. The more complex and far-reaching the corporate struc­tures are, the most precisely you have to analyze and organize them in order to convey a con­sis­tent image in­ter­nal­ly and ex­ter­nal­ly. CI guide­lines for large companies can be several hundred pages long.

Corporate identity is more intended as a con­cep­tu­al construct than anything else. The com­po­nents that create this identity are de­ter­mined by inner values and external factors. The CI of a company is a complex system of different building blocks that influence each other and work in­ter­nal­ly (within the company) and ex­ter­nal­ly (outside the company).

These are the usual goals of a good corporate strategy:

Depending on the design, corporate identity as a corporate man­age­ment strategy consists of 5 to 7 areas and sub-areas. To develop a coherent strategy, you should analyze each area to determine how it affects your corporate identity. Clearly un­der­stood basic values are the basis for a com­pre­hen­sive concept. A company motto also sums up these values suc­cinct­ly. Develop an effective strategy by getting feedback from all de­part­ments and making the process trans­par­ent. The lit­er­a­ture rec­om­mends eval­u­at­ing the success of a strategy according to these four factors:

• Dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion

• Rep­u­ta­tion

• Relevance

• Coherence

A company motto should be short and mean­ing­ful, so it is important to choose it wisely. For example: for years, Google’s company motto was “Don’t be evil”. This motto is in some ways a great principle that conveys social corporate re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, however, much of the message consists of denial (“do not”) of a state: you are running the business well by just remaining passive and not doing anything “bad”. In 2016, Alphabet, the new umbrella company that owns Google, in­tro­duced a new motto: “do the right thing”. This statement is similar in structure, but now calls for positive action instead. This conveys more dynamism and requires employees to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for their own actions.

The most important areas of corporate identity are:

• Corporate design (CD)

• Corporate behavior (CB)

• Corporate culture

• Corporate com­mu­ni­ca­tion (CC) + language (CL)

• Corporate phi­los­o­phy (CP) + corporate soul (CS)

This section rep­re­sents all the sensory elements a company uses to represent them­selves. These should be uniform in order to increase recog­ni­tion value. There should be a company logo, which should appear at the company entrance, on the website, in ad­ver­tis­ing, or let­ter­heads, as well as a rep­re­sen­ta­tive color that should be included on business card and brochure designs. A uniform concept saves time and money, since new designs have to undergo tedious processes. The ar­chi­tec­ture and interior design of company building and branches, the design of uniforms and internet presence, are also part of it. New buzzwords include corporate sound (like the well-known Windows sound) and corporate smells (coffee houses in Vienna scent the air with fresh coffee powder, for example). Corporate design is very important in terms of company recog­ni­tion. Global players usually have a simple, mean­ing­ful company logo. Ideally, a customer should im­me­di­ate­ly recognize your company when they see your logo. Read more about how to create a pro­fes­sion­al logo yourself in the Digital Guide.

It is important to take a close look at the behavior of your company. How does the company deal with groups of people who have a direct con­nec­tion to the company? This includes employees and customers, as well as suppliers, sub­sidiaries, and share­hold­ers. How does your company interact with the public? Employee lead­er­ship, monetary and non-monetary behavior, as well as the ability to criticize are all also included.

The corporate culture is, to some extent, related to the company’s operating culture. Certain basic values, norms, and the legal order must be obeyed and respected by the company. In addition, there may be precise rules of conduct and values that are specific to the company. Depending on their scope and com­mit­ment, they can even influence social culture. Corporate culture also informs the corporate behavior (CB) and corporate com­mu­ni­ca­tion (CC) of a company.

When starting a business, you have a specific purpose. The values and norms that make up the core of the company aside from working towards a profit are what determine corporate phi­los­o­phy. Com­press­ing this value structure to very basic aspects gives you the corporate soul of a company, and expresses the ideal image that you want to represent. The corporate soul is thus a unifying element in all aspects of corporate identity. When the corporate soul of a company can be seen in all areas of corporate gov­er­nance, you have achieved a balanced self-image.

Reaction to negative PR is par­tic­u­lar­ly important in this age of globally ac­ces­si­ble, timely reporting and com­mu­ni­ca­tion through social media. Are you going to delete critical comments and ignore customer’s opinion? Or are you willing to apologize when ap­pro­pri­ate, maybe in an amusing way, to smooth things over? The following is an example by the Dove brand from October 2017. A social media backlash occurred after the company used a racist ad­ver­tise­ment, employing imagery that made many users feel sick – es­pe­cial­ly since this was not the first time a “gaffe” like this had happened:

Companies aim to create a specific image with their corporate identity. In broad­cast­ing that ad­ver­tise­ment, Dove made a massive mistake in corporate com­mu­ni­ca­tion. While the campaign should appeal to all woman, and indicate that the product is suitable for different skin types, many users in­ter­pret­ed their message dif­fer­ent­ly. These people were aware of the topic and could clearly see the prob­lem­at­ic nature of their imagery im­me­di­ate­ly. Other groups took longer to take notice.

However, Dove should have been aware of what their ad­ver­tise­ment implied. Precise analyses and knowledge of their target group is key for a company’s pre­sen­ta­tion. Companies who reveal that they do not un­der­stand their customers’ beliefs, needs, and pref­er­ences quickly lose their employees trust and power of per­sua­sion. As a result, an es­tab­lished brand with a loyal customer base has now damaged their image and their sales figures. However, by apol­o­giz­ing, Dove has shown that they are not immune to or above criticism from their customers. If similar mis­un­der­stand­ings would have taken place and no apology had been issued from the company, serious damage to their image would have been un­avoid­able.