Understand your audience thoroughly . This involves identifying market segments, conducting analysis, creating detailed target group profiles, and organizing focus groups and interviews.
Clearly define the brand's mission, positioning and unique selling proposition . These elements should be integrated into the design and style, giving the brand its individuality and highlighting its key features.
Collect as many examples and references as possible . Choose the options that best match your values, style, and overall concept. This will make it easier to interact with contractors and designers, ensuring that your idea is more accurately embodied.
There are several key aspects to consider when italy business mailing list developing a company's corporate identity:
First, it is important to assess the real possibility of its implementation, which includes choosing suitable contractors, assessing their ability to perform the work well and determining possible costs.
Secondly, it is necessary to determine which elements of the corporate identity will be directly used in practice.
Thirdly, it is necessary not only to create the style itself, but also to develop detailed guidelines for its application.
Fourthly, the created corporate style should look harmonious not only in printed materials, but also in digital format.
How to Develop a Corporate Identity for Your Company: Step-by-Step Instructions
The development of a company's corporate style is a complex and multifaceted process that requires high qualifications and professional skills. Time spent on this education can vary from several weeks to several months.
Each stage of the work requires a careful approach to many factors. The process can be divided into four key stages.
Defining the organization's strategy
Initially, it is important to define the company's strategy, which includes formulating goals and objectives, as well as drawing up an action plan. At this stage, the main concepts and ideas are developed, and an assessment of the company's current position and prospects is made.
How to develop a corporate identity for a company step by step instructions
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The focus is on analyzing the overall context, including the characteristics of products and services, the target audience, the development of the organization, as well as a description of its mission and competitive advantages.
Collecting information about the brand
At this stage, you need to gather information about the brand to understand how the company is different from others. This will help determine how it can be presented in the market. A detailed analysis is carried out and ideas for a unique offer are developed. It is also important to create a target audience profile to better understand who will be interested in the product or service.
Competitor Analysis
You need to identify who exactly is competing with your company and see how they use their corporate styles and what features they have. The goal is to find effective techniques, improve them and apply them to your organization.
Design and development of a brand book
At this stage of creating the company's corporate identity, the concept design is developed. All the results of the work are collected in a brand book - a special book that explains how to use the corporate identity and presents the brand platform.
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What needs to be done after creating a corporate identity for a company
After the development of the company's corporate style, a standards passport is drawn up, which is a set of rules for the use of elements of special symbols on various media. This document is needed to ensure uniformity in the application of the style and its effective use in advertising materials.
Many marketers confuse a standards passport with a brand book. The latter includes a description of brand values and methods of communicating them to consumers, while the former focuses exclusively on the rules for using the visual elements of a company's corporate style.
What needs to be done after creating a corporate identity for a company
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The standards passport includes a detailed description of all elements of the trademark and corporate style, as well as instructions for their use on various advertising media. It covers the following aspects:
Key brand elements such as logo, iconic symbols, brand characters, color palettes and fonts.
Preparation of internal corporate documentation.
Design of documents intended for end consumers.
Creation and design of marketing materials.
Outdoor advertising concept.
Design of souvenir products.
Design of corporate clothing for employees.
Official transport.
This document therefore serves to ensure consistency and integrity in the visual presentation of the brand at all levels.
The standards passport begins with a description of the logo, shown in its color variants. The section on the color palette specifies the primary and secondary colors, as well as the proportions of their use in the logo.
Next comes the section on brand fonts. Although there may be several fonts, it is generally recommended to use one main one. This is important for the design of various materials such as bags, stickers, souvenirs, promotional materials, pens and notepads.
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Rebranding of the company's corporate identity
The corporate style of the company requires constant development and improvement. That is why regular rebranding is an important step.
It is a process of brand adaptation to changes in the market environment and consumer preferences. During rebranding, not only the ideology and positioning of the brand can change, but also its perception in the market.
The main goal is to prolong the relevance and viability of the company or its product. This process is applicable to both large corporations and small businesses.
The reasons for rebranding can be varied:
Outdated visual style and brand communication, which can lead to a decrease in audience loyalty.
Rebranding may also be necessary if a company has updated a product, recipe or production technology.
Changes in distribution channels or customer interaction formats, as well as changes in the portrait of the target audience - its values, interests, habits or demographic characteristics - can also be a reason for this procedure.
The expansion of a company into new geographic or cultural markets, updating the range of goods or services, as well as the emergence of new market trends.
Deterioration of brand reputation.
Legal risks arose, such as name disputes with another company.
Strong competitors have emerged.
There was a change in the company's ownership or a change in business strategy, as happened, for example, with McDonald's and Vkusno - Period.
Rebranding is not a frequent procedure, as it requires significant costs. It is usually carried out only when business results do not satisfy the management or when there are major changes in the company, its products or services.
For example, the Yandex.Taxi app was renamed to Yandex.Go, because in addition to calling a taxi, it now included functions for public transport schedules, food delivery, and calling couriers.
A great example of a successful rebranding is Starbucks, which simplified and updated its logo, making it more recognizable and helping to attract new customers. Google also changed its corporate design, making it more minimalist and modern, which emphasized the innovative nature of the company and strengthened its image.
Download a useful document on the topic:
Checklist: How to Achieve Your Goals in Negotiations with Clients
Frequently asked questions about corporate identity
Now you know why a company needs a corporate style. In a saturated market, where a good product or professional service is no longer enough, corporate design becomes a key element of business development.
Are company identity and corporate style the same thing?
Corporate identity and corporate style are not identical concepts. The former covers only the visual elements of a brand, such as the logo, color palette, and typography. The latter has a broader front and affects all five senses.
Identity includes not only visual components, but also sounds, smells, textures and even taste sensations. Thus, it can be said that corporate identity is an integral part of identity, focused exclusively on visual perception.
How does a company's corporate identity relate to branding?
Branding is a whole complex of strategic actions aimed at creating and maintaining a certain brand image in the minds of consumers. While a company's corporate identity is a set of visual elements and principles, such as logos, fonts and color schemes, that are used to form a recognizable and attractive visual representation of the organization.
What are the current trends in the development of a company’s corporate identity?
Current trends in brand identity design include kineticism, minimalism, elements of rebellion and casualness, as well as the use of retro disco and mascot characters. Each of these trends has its own unique features and can significantly affect the perception of the brand.
Therefore, it is important to carefully analyze how the chosen trend will be integrated into the various elements of the company's corporate identity.
Corporate identity not only increases brand recognition and the effectiveness of advertising campaigns, but also plays a decisive role in attracting and retaining consumers, which ultimately contributes to sales growth.