There’s more profit in corporate identity design than just a shiny new image

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A strategically-planned, well-designed and up-to-date corporate ID is a key factor in the success of any business. But the benefits aren’t simply reflected in improved sales figures, as Firebrand’s Michael Dale explains…

Even the biggest names in business have learned that they can’t hold on to past glories for ever. No matter how successful the formula, businesses have to evolve and respond rapidly to changing markets - a lesson that even one of the UK’s best-loved stores, M&S, discoved to its cost.

As a business creates new objectives, changes its culture, or simply faces the fact that it is lumbered with an image reminiscent of padded shoulders, Margaret Thatcher and Duran Duran, it is time to take a close look at how that image is perceived by suppliers and employees as well as the all-important customer.

And, that’s the point. If you want to evaluate the benefits of a corporate id review, you will need to look further than an increase in your monthly sales figures. Raising your profile will undoubtedly stimulate business and ‘shift more stock’, but the effects are more wide-ranging; from the immediate to the long term and from the practical to the subconscious.

Shed your old image and you can profoundly influence the way your business is viewed by business partners, suppliers and employees. It provides the perfect opportunity for reinvention and a chance to lose any negative associations. After all, we all want to be doing business with a forward-looking and dynamic organisation, so opportunities to forge partnerships with other like-minded businesses become greater resulting in larger markets. Your new profile will also generate intense interest from new suppliers and consequently more competitive service and terms.

Getting staff involved in the development process is a vital but sometimes uncomfortable experience. Finding out that employees regard the organisation as ‘slow’ or ‘bureaucratic’ can be hard for the MD to swallow, but can ultimately trigger important changes in culture or systems. Stick with it and the new corporate id can become a powerful rallying point, unifying and motivating members of staff at all levels.

Investing in a co-ordinated corporate id will also reveal unforeseen opportunities to cut costs. This is where intelligent design plays a big part: stationery can be rationalised or multi-purpose items created; packaging can be produced more economically; forms better designed; and advertising, as a whole, will become more cost effective.

However, it is your marketing budget that usually takes the hit for the initial investment. This is a tough call as corporate id offers a wide range of benefits to the entire organisation. What’s the answer? Sell the idea to colleagues first, next time you ask for an extra large slice of the budgetary cake for a new corporate id you might just get the support you need.