There is a long-standing, often [608209]

There is a long-standing, often
polarizing discussion in our industryabout the differences between design-ing and managing corporate, asopposed to brand, identities andwhether an agency with expertise inbrand identity can also be the bestchoice for corporate identity projects.
This industry issue helps identify
the fact that there are big differencesbetween corporate and brand identitydesign, and that branding and designfirms define themselves along thoselines. However, these lines have beengradually blurring, as corporations findthe need to translate their philosophiesdirectly into products or services. And
within our industry, as corporate andbrand identity agencies merge to betterservice their clients, the two designdisciplines come closer together. It’simportant to keep in mind, though,that the process of designing for corpo-rate and brand is very different, fromanalysis to execution. Our task in thisissue is to address the similarities anddifferences in these processes, and dis-cuss what’s in store for the future.
T o gain some perspective on the key
differences between the two camps, Iqueried some executives at our mem-ber design firms: Stewart Mosberg,MARKETING
Allison Cheston,
Co-Founder, DesignScout
What’s next
in corporate and brand identity design
by Allison Cheston
If you want to know where things are headed, it makes sense to ask leaders on the
front lines. Allison Cheston does just that, drawing out several senior executives
on the differences and overlaps between identity and brand. Together they identifyfrontiers in branding, discuss digital identities and brands, and make somepredictions about the future. The result is an interesting mix of analysis andexperience-grounded speculation.

senior vice president at LAGA; T ony Pearson and
Stuart Berni, senior vice president, marketing,and president and CEO, respectively, of BerniMarketing & Design; Susan Bierzychudek,director of marketing at Axion Design; and ScottKraft, partner at Sterling Group.
Cheston: How would you describe the differ-
ences between corporate and brand identity?
Pearson: Corporate identity is created inter-
nally to reflect management’s strategic directionfor the corporation. It comprises name, logo-type, literature system, nomenclature system,color, symbol, and standards for usage. Brandidentity, on the other hand, reflects a marketer’spositioning of a product or service. It is a seriesof experiences and expectations. It is anemotional response to an integrated franchiseapproach and product experience. A brand ismore flexible and promotional than an identity.A brand comprises a name or trademark thatidentifies a product or service, whereas anidentity can endorse a division or a brand.Sometimes, the corporate identity also becomesa brand that, with its overall philosophy, can betranslated over a diversified line of productsand services.
Mosberg: The key
difference is that thebrand as a corporationtends to have a broaderpublic—from its owncustomer and con-sumer base to WallStreet and the competi-tion. This creates aneed to communicatein broader strokes andto consider geographicand cultural differ-ences.
Bierzychudek: A
corporate identity is less complex and moreuniversal than a brand identity. It must convey acertain level of capability to a broad swath ofviewers. A brand identity must deliver more-complex emotional messages to a more specificaudience. T o be truly effective, it must incorpo-rate key historical equities, implications ofbenefits, quality, efficacy, or overall value. Itmust work in unison with the “capability” ofthe corporate identity and build on that inbelievable ways.Cheston: Can you provide some examples of
a corporate identity becoming a brand?
Pearson: For years, we talked about mono-
lithic identities, such as IBM and Xerox, asopposed to brand-driven companies, like Procter& Gamble and Philip Morris. Then along camehybrid identities, where the corporate identityhad become too rigid to adapt to changing mar-ketplace realities. IBM began developing brandsfor products, such as Note Pad and PC2; Xeroxfound it needed to push its paper at retail, hencethe sub-name The Document Company. AndP&G, while still pushing brands, realized that tomaximize its clout at retail, it needed to use thecorporate identity more as an overall brand.With the need to establish corporate reputationand transcend mere operations, corporationssuch as Philip Morris also began to use theircorporate identity as more of an over-archingbrand for TV ads, print, and so on. GE, GM, andother large companies have followed suit.
Cheston: What differences do you see in the
challenges associated with creating corporate, asopposed to brand, identities?
Berni: For corporate identity assignments,
creating a connection between image andidentity poses the greatest challenge. For brandidentity assignments, it is building presencewhile maintaining brand equity.
Bierzychudek: Creating a really effective pro-
prietary identity for an organization requires adeep understanding of the entity—equities, corevalues, and the singular emotional impressiondesired. Identifying those issues is a challenge.An even greater challenge lies in the frequentinability of all parties on the client side to agreefully on the overall personality and core valuesto be expressed.
Brand assignments ultimately provide greater
challenge and opportunity for the designer. Weare presented with the opportunity to incorpo-rate product attributes, attitudes we wish theconsumer to adopt or retain, product position-ing, and overall quality.
Determining consumer attitudes concerning
a brand is essential in the renewal of a brandidentity. That requires speaking to consumers,asking them the right questions, and exploringtheir assumptions about the brand’s meaning.
Mosberg: The challenge in creating corporate
identities lies in managing all the elements with-in a consistent image. Branding assignments
Building Brand—Building Identity
Within our industry, as
corporate and brand
identity agencies merge
to better service their
clients, the two design
disciplines come
closer together

require being contemporary but not trendy,
having longevity without becoming stodgy or, atworst, obsolete. A brand identity must be uniqueand proprietary, memorable, and relevant to itstarget audience.
Cheston: How do these challenges translate in
the digital world?
Mosberg: There it’s necessary to build identi-
ties that look just as good on a low-resolutionPalm Pilot or Web site as they do on a billboardor a business card. Clients need identities thatare reproducible in all media, in one or morecolors, and with various production techniques.
Berni: I think the biggest challenge is deter-
mining how to break out from the visual clutter.
Cheston: That’s a familiar problem in
traditional brand identity, as well, of course.
Kraft: The biggest discovery I see for brand-
ing and marketing agencies is that the similari-ties between the digital and traditional worldsfar outweigh the differences. A traditional retail-er, such as Target, manages its digital corporateidentity as it would in any other medium. So doMicrosoft, GE, and many others. A companythat only exists on the Internet, however, mustconsider how it will take that identity into thereal world and give it additional tangibility andtouch with customers—what we call “brandconnection.”
Brand identities can be trickier. There are
some brands that only exist online—for exam-ple, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM)—and thesewill certainly evolve more rapidly over the nextfew years. They may still creep into the realworld—AIM phones, AIM radio, and so on.
They may evolve additional functions online—AIM+. But these issues are not that differentfrom those we encounter with brand identitiesin traditional media.
Cheston: What do you predict will be the
future for identities and brands in both theoffline and online worlds?
Berni: I predict that brands will move from
an intangible to a tangible component recog-nized by corporations on their balance sheets.
Mosberg: There are so many identities that
look similar that there will be a need to identifya brand with symbols andwords—more
reflective of the business itself.
Kraft: I think identities will continue to move
in a more dynamic direction toward constantevolution—away from the five-year cycle. One ofour clients, Burger King, hadn’t changed itsidentity in decades. What are the odds it willremain the same for decades more? Very low. Itwill need to evolve with the times. The applica-tion of identities will also continue to changemore rapidly. This is what we call “businessbranding”—really a parallel of consumerbranding, where some of these trends arealready apparent.
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