What is Branding?

In the corporate realm, branding is a business process that is planned, specific in nature and integrated throughout the company. Because the corporate brand is a company’s most important asset whatever their size, the process of branding provides the direction, inspiration and energy for the brand itself. Branding also influences the organization’s name, identity, logo, stationery, web site, visual expression, philosophy and corporate culture… just about everything the company stands for, all the way down to the look of its facilities and the behaviour of its employees.

What is Corporate Identity?

Learning and Skills Web brand identity guidelines See here for a typical set of branding guidelines that can be produced for your organisation.     View PDF

Corporate identity is the visual,outward expression of the corporate brand. It is, in essence, the persona of the organisation.

Take, for example, Coca-Cola. Their brand is recognisable in almost all countries and their corporate identity is tied to that particular colour of red and that unique script font.

Corporate identity can be viewed as having three distinct parts:

1. Corporate design – As mentioned earlier, this includes such things as logos, letterhead, uniforms, stationery, packaging designs, etc. Take a look what we’ve done for our clients already.
2. Corporate communication – This refers to designing websites, brochures,advertisements, mailers, commercials, press releases, public relations... anything that communicates with the general public.
3. Corporate behaviour – This encompasses the internal values and characteristics of the entire corporate culture and the employees who make it up.
   
   We specialise in true Corporate Identity for organisations whatever their size.
   Working within your budget we can provide you with all the items involved in building your true Corporate Identity.
   
   The first steps in creating a brand should be done by a specilaist external company like ourselves but can be underataken by the organisation itself if it has resources to do so.

The first steps in creating a brand in simple terms are:

Successful branding is about promoting your strengths. Start by thinking about what you're good at and what you believe in as a business. For example:

• particular skills - such as excellence in design
• high-quality customer service
• providing the best value for money in your marketplace
• innovation - perhaps in a niche market

You need to be sure that you can always deliver your promises using your strengths, sometimes referred to as "brand values".

What customers want

You also need to match these brand values to your customers' requirements.

What drives your customers? What makes them buy? In most cases, it's not only about price or performance.

Ask existing customers what they like about doing business with you. And asking potential customers what they look for in their buying decisions can also give you useful information to help develop your business - and your brand.

If your brand values are in line with what existing and potential customers look for when they're buying, you've got the beginnings of a useful brand and you're ready to start building it.

But if they're not, you'll probably need to reconsider either the benefits you offer to your present customers or whether you're targeting the right people.

For example, a clothes shop that has high fashion as a brand value can capitalise on it if its customers and potential customers want to buy the trendiest gear. But if its customer base is made up of pensioners, it's unlikely those brand values will be in line with its customers' buying needs.

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