Corporate branding – at first glance these two words may seem of average importance, but the truth is they are far more than that. You see corporate branding means everything to your company – It is how your company is recognized from the colors you choose to your logo to the layout of your office or store, your signage and custom counter displays, and your e-commerce website.
Competing on the global market is increasingly more difficult. While the ability to reach becomes easier for all companies, that amount of competition increases in parallel. Corporations are becoming more aware of just how important the role of corporate branding is in establishing and maintaining their presence on the global market front.
Corporate branding creates an identity for your company. When that company brand becomes recognizable, and current customers or potential customers recognize it, they will be able to easily find your company. In fact, corporate branding will allow you to create a unique position for your company within the market place. The right corporate branding strategy will allow your company to enable more leverage, which leads to branding excellence throughout your company.
Still not convinced? Consider this – when we say Disney, Mercedes, CNN, McDonalds, or Microsoft what do you think of. These are just a few companies that have established powerful corporate branding for their company, and then used the corporate branding to penetrate and establish a global market where their company is highly recognizable.
A strong brand is about building recognition and then maintaining strong perceptions with your current customers and potentially new customers. While this takes time to develop and then establish it is certainly worth the resources necessary and the time it takes for the branding to take hold.
So how do you start to develop corporate branding? You need to begin with a goal. If you want to establish a corporate brand and then grow it successfully, you need to have management tracking and measuring the strength of your existing corporate brand and in relation to the total brand portfolio. Research will help you to understand your company’s landscape in more detail and it will serve for the basis for your future corporate branding strategies.
Great now it is time to determine if changes need to occur and what those changes will be. Remember your corporate branding is an umbrella of your company’s activities – its values, vision, positioning, image, and even its personality. For example, let’s look at the branding strategy of P&G, which is well known for their multi-brand strategy and yet it incorporates all of their activities of the company. Their branding strategy is about creating simplicity and it easily incorporates all of their activities under their corporate branding, and they are easy to identify.
Let’s look at another example. Apple has established a strong position as being an innovative company that is design driven and offers a number of products and services. Apple’s corporate branding encapsulates the heart and soul of the company, and all of their main messages use that corporate branding while sub-brands help to identify specific product lines.
By now, you can see just why corporate branding is so important to your company. You now know why it is so important that your company give corporate branding their full attention so that you can maximize your brand recognition.
