Corporate Branding

[KENAT]

Anyone else endured Corporate Branding.

Anyone think it adds anything or is it just a pointless exercise to keep arts, business & marketing graduates busy.

I can just about understand doing it for Sales and Marketing but we just had an all hands meeting for 2 hours this afternoon about it.

Or how about anyone have any smart anograms or similar I can substitute for our new "internal rally cry" of

Performance = Success

I also posted a copy of our "Elevator Statement" next to the freight elevator.

 

[RDK]

I had a client that went through a re-branding effort. They were a large multi-national consortium of companies all with different names that did not relate to each other. All proposals and marketing efforts had a large amount of effort in them describing the linkages between the various companies.

The re-branding was to use the corporate name followed by a name describing the individual work unit. It followed that all stationary, signs etc were to the same standard with their logo and the corporate name and unit name.

The end result was a better corporate identity and clients that had a better idea of who and what they were dealing with. Overall it was a well worthwhile effort.



Rick Kitson MBA P.Eng

Construction Project Management
From conception to completion

http://www.kitsonengineering.com

 

[MortenA]

RDK
OK I wont say that you cant have a good branding effort - however as many others have supported BUZZ words like "branding" often causes management to say "so einen ding mussen wir auch haben" (thats german for "I gotta get me one of those") and then just go half the way (like a pep talk after work time ha s finished).

Best regards

Morten

 

[prohammy]

KENAT,

I have to agree that 'Corporate Branding' seems to have become the last chance of the damned.

I was with one company (in Ireland) who went through a rebranding exercise (or to use the stratagists terminology a 'phased image purification'....marvelous that one) because a small US company had the same name as us which was problematic for our US sales team. We were told about the 'exciting new development' (which I thought was a term applied to new engineering projects, how little I knew back then). We were told of our new company name, which would 'inspire the market and invigorate our customers'. We were shown our new company colours, which were 'bold and exciting'. We were basically told that world domination was on the way......

Anyone see where this is going.....

I (and 50% of the workforce) were left go 9 months later when the US markets down-turned, the company was taken over by venture capitalists that had a minority share, and the owners/management were ousted.

If only we had saved some money, concentrated on core markets......etc etc etc.... common story

The good news, it was at that point I decided to go into the contact design game and have never looked back.

Conclusion. Corporate rebranding must be a good thing???? (I know a bit less cynicism and I might turn out to be a nice person)

Kevin Hammond

Mechanical Design Engineer
Derbyshire, UK

 

[TStaples]

Kenat,

I can't believe your management has fallen victim to this practice of expounding the obvious. These "consultants" are rather shallow and twist some fairly obvious observations with word substitions to come up with such impressive slogans to charge $$$$ for.

In order to derive what they REALLY are saying, we must use a simple thesaurus, and perform simple substitution.

For example:
PERFORMANCE=SUCCESS

According to my thesaurus:
PERFORMANCE=ROUTINE

SUCCESS=CONQUEST
CONQUEST=OCCUPATION
OCCUPATION=SOMETHING TO DO

By substituting in the original meanings for the contrived slogan, it is obvious that the consultants really mean:

ROUTINE=SOMETHING TO DO!

My personal slogan is:
BRANDING CONSULTANTS=EXPOUNDING THE OBVIOUS

-Tony Staples

http://www.tscombustion.com

 

[KENAT]

Tstaples, I wish I could share your disbelief.

 

[KENAT]

Gets better, they now have a bunch of office items (pens, pads, coffee cups) with our logo and 'cutesy' quotes on them.

Note pad: "Here are some more solutions for a nanoscale world" on every page not just a cover.

Pen: "Don't forget to write down your world changing ideas everyday"

Don't have a cup to hand but it's something like "world leading scientists rely on us, we rely on coffee".

This after a 'profit sharing check' that barelay paid for a family dinner.

 

[PSE]

I think we have either re-branded or re-logo'd the company 3 times in the past 4 years. The first major change, "modernized" the corporate logo and established a corporate color theme. The next change was incorporating into that logo, part of the corporate colors of another company we purchased. Marketing then realized that the new logo color scheme did not look good on our products so we reverted back to the previous color scheme but added a "catch or tag" line. I threw away all previous business cards and so far have not bothered to order new. Surprisingly, I have not missed having business cards at all.

I shudder at the cost of all this. Corporate signage, letterhead, packaging artwork, literature and more all had to change numerous times during this period.

 

[Jordonlaw]

I went through this once with a big UK company. They merged with a competitor and then changed their name using expensive guys in suits. To much fanfare they announced to the world their new name and most people laughed. Soon afterwards we got a memo round asking us to look at a document (procedure ?) that showed us how to use the new name and associated logo. The memo didn't follow the document and the document consisted of prescribing where the logo should be placed on buildings. An excellent use of shareholders money.

 

[TDAA]

There is a pretty short sighted view of Corporate Branding (CB) on this site, but for good reason.

True CB is earned over time, and is one of the most important aspects of visual marketing. It means having visibility and consistency in looks. As mentioned above, the "Coke Wave" is known around the world by almost everyone. The "Golden Arches" are not far behind. In the US, most people recognise the yellow pricetag is Best Buy. Chilie's has dropped there name on thier signs, replacing it with a red pepper. It doesn't even have to be a "worless" logo. I am sure you can picture the Sony font, or how the E in Dell is at an angle (as I see 4 of them in front of me). You see them, and know exactly what it means.

So, with world wide recognition of CB efforts, why is it so bad? I think it is because engineers dont really believe that marketing works for them. Heck, the logo doesn't do the work, you do! But guess what, seeing that logo consistently, will make the client remember that you did the work for them. Sure, it is not a substitute for face or phone time, but it helps in the overall picture. It has certianly worked for the products we buy, the places we shop, the places we eat, and may of our clients. Why not us?

 

[KENAT]

Like I said in my OP I can see why you'd do it from a sales & marketing point of view & to influence the customers.

However I still have trouble seeing the benefit of a dedicated 2 hr meeting + goodies, internal gimmicks etc.