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The importance of building a strong brand identity

 

 

Author: Yvonne Verrall, CEO, Blue Butterfly Marketing & Communications

 

Date: 30 December 2022

 

A strong brand identity is critical in forming a positive brand sentiment for your company, products and/or services. The reasons why this is so important, is that it enables differentiation, personality, consistency, awareness, and loyalty for staff and customers. Whenever staff and customers undergo a positive brand experience, the more loyal they will become towards your brand, and therefore makes it one of the company’s most valuable assets. However, should the brand experience be negative, may cause the brand harm.

 

The ‘brand image’ is an existing external perception held by consumers, and form the overall beliefs and associations that customers or potential customers have about your brand, and forms an extension of your product or service from a variety of sources.

 

When discerning the brand identity of a company, the perception needs to be understood by its target audience as who they are and what they stand for, and is identified through the company’s holistic image and reputation through its corporate identity, communications, culture, values and behaviour.

 

• Corporate identity comprises of your company’s unique brand assets that differentiates itself from competitors, and is visually depicted through the company name, logo, CI guidelines, pay-off line, colour palette, typography, tone of voice, physical environment, visual identity, to name a few. The CI guidelines act as a blueprint for staff and agencies to follow to ensure consistency of the brand application on various elements such as business cards, letterheads, corporate gifts, corporate clothing, etc.

 

• Corporate Communications includes both internal and external communications, and how information is distributed to employees, customers, investors, and external stakeholders and includes public relations, media relations, reputation management, social media, digital marketing, and advertising efforts.

 

• Corporate behaviour is the ‘brand essence’ of a company and illustrates its core values, its brand promise, and philosophy. It’s what makes the company stand for that uniquely differentiates itself from competitors, and becomes its blueprint. This evolution can be achieved through enabling strategies such as corporate social responsibility, shared values and sustainability, and through living the company’s brand promise and that is recognised by customers, clients, employees, investors and external stakeholders.

 

Therefore, by building and maintaining a good brand identity is critical to the success of how a company wants to be perceived by its target audience and is important for brand consistency, for brand recognition, and to keep their brand loyalty.

 

By building a strong brand identity creates:

 

• Authority: It differentiates your brand from your competitors and makes your brand easy to identify through design, communication, and action.

 

• Cohesion: It Ensures that everyone within your company represents it consistently with each interaction with clients, stakeholders, and potential customers.

 

• Expertise. It helps project your brand as trustworthy and an expert in your industry.

 

• Reliability. It standardises your brand’s visual appearance across all channels, for example channels such as email, social media, etc.

 

See how Blue Butterfly Marketing can enable evolution for your business through creating a strong brand identity for your company. Visit https://www.bluebutterflymarketing.co.za for more information.

 

Source: https://marcom.com/four-reasons-why-a-strong-brand-should-begin-with-corporate-identity/