Corporate Identity: Put Your Best Face Forward
How you present your company, particularly in a first-time
situation, has a lot to do with how you're perceived in the
marketplace.
Sad but true, you may be an absolute whiz with your equipment
and you may be a virtual expert in your chosen field, but if
your company looks like a bunch of amateurs, you personally may
be treated like one, and not get the respect (or the big budget
projects) that you so rightfully deserve.
If you've ever worked for a big corporation, no doubt you've
been specifically told how to use their logo, what typeface to
use for their name, and what corporate colors you must use for
reproduction of same. You may even have been handed a bulky
"Corporate Graphics Standards" binder, replete with color
swatches and exacting dimensions of everything from door signs
to envelopes. The name of the game is "corporate identity." And
it's just as important for you as it is any Fortune 500 company.
When you strip away all the clutter and marketing gobbledygook,
the real purpose of a corporate identification program is to
produce a system of graphics that is professional, attractive
and that will enhance the image of your firm. Such a program
should encompass all aspects of visual communications
--including your stationery, advertising, packaging, brochures,
signage, trade show booth design, and other printed material
that will be viewed by both current and potential clients.
Okay, so you're not quite at the level of General Motors or
Microsoft. It doesn't matter what size you are. Establishing and
maintaining your corporate identification is very important in
your marketplace --whether you're doing business on a local,
regional or national scale.
Why? Simple. Because whether you're a company of one, or a
company of 100 people, you want people to remember you; you want
to look like you know what you're doing; you want to look
stable, creative and --most of all --professional.
Let me tell you how we made my last company look much larger
than life.
Great Lakes Video Services was incorporated about a dozen years
ago. At the time of our inception, the staff consisted of yours
truly, my partner and two part-time technicians, and we had two
dinky offices on a side street office building.
We were little. But we wanted to look larger than life. We
wanted to look like we were well-established (which we weren't),
savvy (which we were), professional (yep), businesslike (ditto),
and creative (fer sure!)
So one of the first things we did after setting up the videotape
dupe rack and plugging the editing suite together was to hire a
professional designer and had him develop a logo. Simple,
strong, colorful and eye-catching, it features our name and a
graphic device that resembles both a wave (Great Lakes --get
it?) and an artfully draped piece of videotape. We decided on
our corporate colors --strong shades of blue (for water) and
green (for money), and locked in a "corporate" typeface --one
that would not vary, regardless of where it was to be used.
And then we proceeded to put our new corporate identity/logo on
EVERYTHING we could think of. Our shipping boxes. Our
letterhead. Even our second sheets carried the simple wave
device on the left-hand side. Our business cards, envelopes,
order forms, mailing labels, tape box labels, cassette top and
spine labels, rate cards, service brochures, invoices --even our
equipment identification stickers carried the message in a
consistent fashion. And even though my partner (the business and
finance guy) winced at the cost of three-color printing for
"throwaway" shipping labels, I persisted. If we wanted to convey
the image that we were big and slick and could deliver, we had
to consistently look that way.
And it worked. The corporate identity we established
accomplished its purpose. We were perceived as having our act
together.
The frightening thing about public perception is that we in
reality could have been totally unhinged and thoroughly
unprofessional, working in our garages or basements with
antiquated equipment, but our graphic identity made us look like
we knew what we were doing. Hence, people trusted us with their
work. And when we did a good job, they kept coming back. And we
prospered for it.
The lesson here is to remember to present your customers and
prospects a strong, consistent image. Fragmented or sporadic
adherence to this idea ultimately damages your corporate
credibility. So decide what you want to be in the mind of your
public. Take the time to develop a corporate identity program
that says who you are and what you do, and exudes
professionalism.
And when you've got it, use it!
Emblazon your name on everything from labels to baseball caps,
ads to vehicles, business cards to building signs. Remember that
synergy is strength, and consistency is the name of the game.