PBL session 2

Brand identity and brand symbolism

1. What is brand identity vs. brand image?

I learned a lot about this in my first year of Communications Management back in Belgium. In the course 'Communications Management 1', we covered what is called Corporate Communication. In this chapter, we can find the terms brand image and brand identity. Before we move on to the terms, I would like to repeat what corporate communication is. 

Corporate Communication is the way a company identifies itself, creates a personality and shows that identity to the stakeholders via the corporate communication mix: communication, behaviour and symbolism. 

Not only living creatures need an identity, but so does a company. They want to differentiate themselves from the competition and need a license to operate (why do they exist? What is their purpose/benefit?).

Brand identity comes from and gives the possibility to interaction with others. (A <-> B). Identity itself is not static. A company has to adapt itself to the constantly changing needs of the customers and the environment. The core identity of the organisation is stable, but it's the way the company shows itself to the outside world (extended identity), which changes. 

You have 3 different types of identity (translated from dutch):

• Real identity: what the organisation really is and what it shows
• Wanted identity: what the organisation wants to be 
• Self-image: how the organisation sees itself (how employees for example see the company)

This chapter is quite big and interesting, but I'll keep it to a short summary. The identity is shown through the corporate identity mix:

• Personality: what are the core values of your organisation? You can't give it all, so you have to focus on max 3 core core values. Volvo for example focuses on security. 
• Communication: every internal and external communication has to be in line with the core values
• Behaviour: (very important!) what organisations do day in, day out (contact with customers, how they handle certain political/environmental/human topics...) -> practise what you preach! 
• Symbolism: the visual identity of the company (logo, typo, colours...). See more, question 3.

This is consistent with the definition of Aaker (Building Strong Brands, 1996). He gives a lot of definitions and starts with this one:

Brand identity is a unique set of brand associations that the brand strategist aspires to create or maintain. These associations represent what the brand stands for and imply a promise to customers from the organisations members. 

What is brand image than? Well, it gets a little bit more complicated from here on. A lot of people mix the terms 'brand image' with 'brand reputation'. I'll explain the difference. 

Brand image is what the organisation thinks the image is that other people have of the organisation. 2 different kind:

• Wanted brand image: what the company wants people to think about them
• Real brand image: what the organisation thinks people think about the organisation

There are different stages of image:

• Product image (for example chocolate spread)
• Brand image (f.e. Nutella)
• Company image (f.e. Ferrero)
• Branche image (f.e. people who make chocolate spread)
• Country image 
• Users image (f.e. people who eat Nutella)

Reputation is the answer on the question "what do people think about the organisation?". So brand image starts from the company itself, reputation from the stakeholders. 

Let's have a look at Aaker again. He explains that there are certain 'gaps' when defining the brand identity. One of those gaps is the brand image gap. He defines brand image as the way people perceive the brand. That isn't consistent with I've just said. I can't tell who is right or wrong. He isn't the only one to define brand image like this. (Businessdictionary, Management Study Guide, Cambridge Dictionary). What do you think about the difference between brand image and brand reputation?  

CONCLUSION

Brand identity is about who/what the organisation is or wants to be. Brand image is about what the organisation thinks people think about it (or what they want people to think about it). Reputation is what people really think about the organisation. 

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I used the book Communicatie Handboek (Wil Michels, 2013), which is in dutch. My teacher, Ben Caudron (sociologist and media expert), expanded the definition, so his conclusions are in there as well. 

2. Compare different brand identity models

According to Michels (Communicatie Handboek, 2013), you have different identity structures:

• Branded identity: daughter company has its own identity - f.e. Pepsico has Lays
• Endorsed identity: daughter company has its own symbolism and communication, but the mother company's identity remains visible - f.e. Nestlé and Unlilever (parent visibility plays a role here too: how visible is the logo from the mother company)
• Monolitic identity: daughter companies have no identity of their own. They just copy that of the mother company - f.e. BMW, Philips, Shell...

Besides that, there are a lot of brand identity models. One of the most known is the one from Aaker. In his book Building Strong Brands (1996) he dedicated a whole chapter to brand identity. 

A firm should consider its brand as: 

• A product: with what product/products is the brand associated? (product scope, attributes, quality/value, uses, users and country of origin)
• An organisation: about organisational attributes (f.e. drive for quality, concern for the environment...)
• A person: what characteristics has your brand? What kind of person would it be? (Aaker has different brand personalities as well)
• A symbol: logo's, metaphors... (anything that represents the brand can be a symbol)

Here you can see Aaker's entire Brand Identity Planning Model. 

Another well-known brand identity model is the one from Jean-Noël Kapferer (retrieved from Marketing Lessons & Eurib). He created a Brand Identity Prism. It tells us how to bring a story starting from 6 facets: 

• Brand Physique: what is it? What does it do? How does it look like? - f.e. the shape of the Coca Cola bottle is very important for the brand
• Brand Personality: the way in which it speaks of its products or services shows what kind of person it would be if it were human - f.e. using celebrities for your commercials
• Brand Culture: plays an essential role in the prism and helps differentiating brands. It indicated a bundle of values who are embedded in the products and services of the brand. Often influenced by the country of the brand.
• Relationship: brands are also transactions and exchanges between people
• Reflection: a brand is also a customer reflection (about brand image and reputation), what kind of people use your brand?
• Self-image: a brand speaks to our self-image - f.e. someone driving a Ferrari wants to be seen in a certain way

On this website (Quora), I've found a list of several brand identity models in pictures. I want to share the ones I thought were the most interesting and usable.

When we compare all these different models, we can see the following return:

• One of the most deep and important factors are the brand values
• Brand personality and culture usually derive from these values
• Every model also talks about the physical appearance (most of the time more superficial and less important) 
• Also often included is the brand image (or what people think about the brand, their perceptions)
• You have to promise the customer something and bring them emotional or functional benefits

3. How is the visual identity based on the brand identity

According to Michels (Communicatie Handboek, 2013), visual identity comes along with the brand identity. Like I've already said, the visual identity is a part of the corporate identity mix (symbolism). 

The look and feel gives your brand identity a visual shape. It has different ways of doing that.

Name and logo

A logo and name are very important. Everyone needs to be able to pronounce and recognise it. If you have a very strong logo (like Nike for example), the name isn't even necessary anymore to indicate the brand. The swoosh will do. 

Colours

People process colours quicker than text, so thinking about which color your brand is going to use, is important. It has to be in line with the brand identity. Every colour means something, like you can see in the scheme below:

(I also learned about this during my course 'Consumentenpsychologie' in Belgium, which is translated as consumer/customer psychology). 

Typography

The typo gives your brand a certain personality as well. There is this difference for example:

• Serif typo: easier to read, seems older (f.e. Times New Roman)
• Sans-serif typo: more modern, playful (f.e. Verdana)

Images

Companies have to be consistent in the type of images they use. If they do, the benefit is that the company's advertisement will be recognised more quickly. United Colours of Beneton is a good example for this topic:

4. Analyse the brand identity of a company with a suitable model

A brand I'm very fond of is the chocolate bar Quetzal. Quetzal is not a normal café, it's a café which offers you the best of the chocolate world. Practically everything they offer contains chocolate (chocolate milks, brownies, ice cream, milkshakes... name it).

I'll analyse their brand identity according to Kapferer's brand identity prism:

• Brand physique: Quetzal is a chocolate café with a cosy brown/red interior. The inside looks very alike along all the different establishments. The drinks and snack they serve are always presented in a similar way. The typical brownie is the main attraction of Quetzal. It comes along with every other drink or snack.
• Brand personality: if Quetzal would be a person, he/she would be joyful, relaxing and enjoying the small things in life. He/she would be warm and kind. 
• Brand culture: Quetzal doesn't really mention its culture somewhere, so I have to guess it from the way things go inside the café. In Quetzal always work a lot of young people, so they are giving them opportunities to explore the horeca world. I believe it isn't a strict company. It's not stiff, you go ask for your drinks and food yourself, they make it and you go get it yourself afterwards.
• Relationship: the people behind the cash desks are always friendly, which is important to maintain a good relationship. They also offer special deals, f.e. that you get a free brownie on your birthday. This all in order to keep the clients happy. 
• Reflection: most of the people going to Quetzal are girls from 16-25, because of the fact that they usually have establishments in real student cities. Everyone I've talked to is fond of Quetzal. I have never heard anyone complain about the brand or service they give, so I guess their reputation is quite good. 
• Self-image: what Quetzal actually brings you is full enjoyment. Everything you order is a guilty pleasure you earned. There quote says it all 'there is more to life than chocolate, but not right now'. 

5. Analyse (or design) the visual identity of a chosen company

If we have a look at Quetzal again, I'll analyse the points I mentioned in question 3.

• Name and logo: Quetzal sounds quite exotic and so is their logo. If you look for Quetzal, you can actually see it's a green bird from center America. I don't know what the reason is behind this, so maybe Quetzal should make that more clear.

• Colours: Quetzal generally uses dark red and brown. This can refer to the color of chocolate and is related to warmth, passion, hunger, stable, reliable...
• Typography: the typography of Quetzal is a non-serif one. It is playful and exotic. 
• Images: the images from Quetzal always have the same, warm feeling above them.