31 Jan The Pivotal Role of Corporate Branding for Companies

For every brand, there is usually a distinct set of traits and characteristics that helps it to distinguish itself from others. From the corporate colours on the marketing material, to the logo design, to the typography on your social media posts, down to the design of your packaging, these contribute to building a strong brand identity for your company and helps customers to recognise your brand, the values it stands for and the unique selling points that your brand possesses. Corporate branding involves creating a set of brand guidelines that not only helps to distinguish your brand from others, but creates an image that resonates well with your target consumers, business partners, employees and other stakeholders involved in your company. 

The role of corporate branding is vital in determining a company’s success. Here are some ways corporate branding can create a positive impact on a company’s performance.

Clicking with your Target Audience

 Creating a brand image that resonates with your target audience is important in helping your brand to capture market share in a highly competitive environment. When it comes to painting a brand image that clicks with your target audience, the brand elements have to convey values that resonate well with your target group of potential consumers.

If a brand wants to convey a premium brand image to its consumers, the typography of their marketing material, colours and brand elements all have to exude classiness. For example, using colours like black and gold can create a more premium image, as these are colours often associated with luxury. Having trademark colours exclusive to your brand also helps with increasing brand recognition and brand recall. For example, Tiffany & Co.  is famous for its trademark colour that is in the shade of robin blue. The colour is associated with sophistication, exclusivity, and quality. A brand does not just sell products or services. It sells a lifestyle, an extension of one’s identity. Capturing the attention of your target audience with brand elements that conveys their ideal values is half the battle won. 

Increasing Employee Advocacy 

What makes your brand different from other brands? It could be your brand’s strong belief in sustainable manufacturing, or your brand’s values on providing quality service to its customers. Do your employees know this? Having a strong corporate branding that conveys values that the company stands for can help employees or potential employees better understand its mission, vision and objectives. If these are values that resonate well with them and are easily identifiable through a strong corporate branding, then employees are more inclined to advocate for their brand as well. The brand also becomes more attractive and your talent pool might also increase. 

Expanding your Scope of Products/Services

A strong corporate branding can also help you to expand your product or service more easily. In the long run, having a brand identity that your target audience is familiar with can help you to start new lines of products while falling back on your brand’s reputation to sell them. This is especially important if a company is venturing into a new industry and is a new player in the market.

Apple is a good example of a brand with a very strong identity. It has expanded its product portfolio to many different kinds of technological devices, from phones to laptops to smart watches. All products are still in Apple’s trademark sleek packaging, contain Apple’s trademark logo, and have advertisements that are unique to Apple’s graphic design and typography. These remind people that regardless of what products Apple sells, all products still embody the same cool and simplistic image that their loyal customers love. Having a strong corporate branding builds credibility around new product launches as audiences are already familiar with your brand and what it stands for. 

Creating Marketing Materials that Matter 

We live in a sea of advertisements all competing for our attention. It is thus important to have marketing material that is striking and helps consumers to identify a brand quickly and easily. From social media posts, to bus stop ads, to electronic direct mail, to newsletters and loyalty cards, they should all contain brand elements that are easily identifiable to consumers. Every form of marketing material is an opportunity for brand exposure. With repeated exposure comes brand recall. Consumers would be able to include your brand in their consideration set when it comes down to choosing a product or service that they are looking for. Especially when it’s a low-involvement product, the final decision may boil down to how memorable a brand is. Even for high-involvement products/services, having a memorable brand with brand values that resonate well with the consumer encourages him or her to make purchase of your brand’s offerings.

Standardisation 

For iconic and captivating marketing material, it is important to have standardised corporate colours, brand elements, typography and design templates that can help consumers to identify your brand. Including them in a brand guideline helps with easy reference and usage. Having standardised brand elements is especially useful for brands with operations across borders, where marketing needs to be localised, but the core brand elements still need to be there for the purpose of effective brand awareness. This way, there will be no confusion of brand identity when a company decides to expand overseas and build a presence there. 

A good corporate branding strategy will be able to convey the brand’s values, vision, mission and objectives clearly to the public. Through constructing and defining key brand elements, brand awareness can be built and more people will be able to recognise or recall your brand. This is key when it comes to having your brand considered by your target audiences. It increases the chances of your target audience converting into loyal customers. Strong corporate branding also portrays your brand in a good light and encourages employees to be your brand advocates.  

If you are interested in developing a good corporate brand strategy with us, click here. Click here to explore other digital consultancy services that Pivot Tree offers.