Stronger brands are always the result of homogeneous brand identity and congruent identity factors. Regardless, is the identity and reputation more applicable to the external estimation of a company’s brand than its image?
By identifying the gaps between a company’s brand reputation and its identity, managers can quickly identify various strategies through which incongruencies can be reduced and the brand becomes more powerful. So, it is considered that the vital aspects of branding are brand identity and brand reality.
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Brand Identity – Definition
Brand identity may be defined as a set of visible components that depict a company’s ideas and enable the consumers to recollect a brand. It distinguishes your brand from a dozen of others. Modelling brand identity is a version that first teaches us how to build brands.
A consumer’s perception of a brand and his loyalty, memorability, and trust towards it are all shaped by a brand’s identity. Whether a person is his company rebrand’s project manager or he needs to educate his staff about the basics of his brand, formulating a brand identity for his company is the definitive resource.
From brand investigation to brand strategy, design execution to launch and governance, constructing brand identity is the best practice for branding success and inspiration. Besides, the designing of brand identity provides a comprehensive, easy-to-comprehend, and pragmatic resource for any brand builder, no matter if the builder is local or global.
Thus, it is a vital reference for executing a conventional brand system. The design director of Coca-Cola Company, Alex Center, once confessed that Alina Wheeler’s book is inspiring and has helped several people face the daring challenge of interpreting their brand.
A company’s identity may be local, personal, national, virtual, or global. It is tangible and appeals to one’s senses. One can see it, hear it, touch it and hold it. The brand identity of a brand powers distinction, magnifies differentiation and makes possible all great inklings and essences.
When Can You Begin The Brand Identity Method?
One can begin the process of creating a firm’s brand recognition in the following cases:
- When a fresh company or commodity is launched
- When a company’s name is needed to be changed
- When a brand is required to be revitalized
- When the identity of a firm is needed to be revitalized
- An integrated scheme is established
- During the merging of the firms
Brand Identity, Culture, and Brand Performance:
Classic brand management models used to pay limited attention to the company’s staff, who significantly contributed to building brand identity. But, today, various companies feel the need to parallel their values or behaviours with the desired values of their brand.
It elucidates culture’s importance in brand building. Besides, a strategically appropriate culture that is adaptive to and consistently evident throughout an organization gets associated with healthful brand performance.
Brand Identity Elements:
One can’t consider a brand’s identity as merely a logo. There are several other components of a brand identity that one should consider. The elements are:
- Logos
- Font
- Style consistency
- Shape & form
Process Of Creating An Influential Brand Identity:
- Analyzing a brand’s ideal customer, competitors, and extraordinary value proposition
- Coming up with unique visual elements for the brand. Such graphic elements must reflect the brand’s ideas
- Thinking of the language, one would require to communicate with his consumers
- Avoiding various negative practices
- Monitoring the brand’s progress
Examples Of Brand Identity:
Coca-Cola Company:
This brand is well-reknown among numerous customers worldwide, and when the consumers hear the brand’s name, the first things that come to their mind are the red logo of coca-cola, the polar bear, and the “Share a Coke” saying.
US Polo Assn.
This brand is also trendy for men’s apparel. In this brand’s case, the first thing that comes to one’s mind on hearing the name of this brand is the logo of a man playing polo.
Nike:
This brand is prominent for its “Just do it” tagline and the swoosh logo. These days, the brand has become so recognizable through the visual brand elements that anyone can identify it with a single pronunciation of its name. The brand name’s styled version initially acted as a logo but was later combined with a swoosh.
Brand Identity and Brand Imaging:
One can differentiate brand image from brand identity in that brand imaging is the customer’s opinion regarding a brand. In contrast, brand identity is the brand’s effort to mould the clients’ impression.
Where brand identity represents the compilation of elements created by a brand to portray an image to the company’s customers, the brand image represents the opinion formation of the consumers about the brand.
Every kind of marketing’s end-state produces a persistent bond between the offered company brand and the clients. In today’s rising rivalry in the market, it can be estimated that a never-ending brand conflict is possible that will attempt to de-solidify the bonding between customers and the brand.
That ensures a long-run success; a system strategy toward the brand or its image’s proper integration needs to be developed.
Importance Of Brand Identity:
There is no need for a significant market share or massive customer footing like other predominant brands.
- Customer loyalty
- The constant growth of the brand
- Brand recognition
- Brand’s values or personality gets represented through it
- Customer trust
- Convey endless messages to all marketing channels
- The brand gets its appropriate position
- Creates a well-recognizable extraordinary design
- Brand awareness gets improved
Wrapping Up:
Thus the importance of brand identity can never be ignored in a brand’s success. It will always be more important than a brand’s image. And, making proper brand identity elements helps to gain popularity of the brand and the customer’s remembrance of it.
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