What Is Corporate Branding?
Corporate branding is the practice of creating and promoting a unique corporate brand name. Corporate branding focuses on establishing an identity around a business rather than around the business’s products or services.
Corporate branding includes the process of naming and promoting a business. The aim is to create certain associations and affiliations between consumers and the business, rather than the products alone.
Businesses engaging in corporate branding will promote the company name to build affiliations with products, services, and feelings in consumer’s minds.
Why Is Corporate Branding Important?
Corporate branding is important because it helps increase the company’s brand awareness among a wide consumer audience.
Corporate branding helps potential customers associate a company name and brand with its products and services, as well as its value. By promoting the corporate identity along with the products, customers grow to affiliate those products with the brand’s logo, color scheme, slogan, and other brand elements.
Forming this affiliation also helps businesses foster brand loyalty as customers begin to form a relationship with the brand. This ultimately gives the company a competitive advantage due to the increased awareness and customer following.
How Do Branding Agencies Create Brand Guidelines?
Branding agencies employ teams of experts to help businesses identify and outline core elements of their brand. The brand elements included in brand guidelines may include:
- Brand story
- Brand signature
- Logo
- Colors
- Typography and fonts
Branding agencies create brand guidelines by:
- Understanding the brand story: Branding agencies will spend time getting to know the company leadership and understanding the history, mission and vision of the business. Once they understand the brand story, they can create a synopsis for the company’s brand guidelines.
- Creating a brand signature: A brand signature combines a company’s name and logo and serves as a clear identifier for the brand. Branding agencies help businesses establish specifications for a brand signature and communicate those specifications in the brand guidelines.
- Establishing logo guidelines: Branding agencies can help businesses establish requirements and guidelines for the use of their logo. Branding experts can advise businesses on correct sizing and rendering of the company logo for the branding guidelines or style guide.
- Breaking down the brand’s colors: Branding agencies often include experts on colors that can assist businesses in choosing the right primary and secondary colors for the company’s style guide. These experts also help outline the correct uses for the colors online and in print in the brand guidelines.
- Outlining the company’s typography and fonts: Branding experts understand how to establish visual hierarchy with different font sizes. Fonts are important to communicate in a style guide for internal and external teams. Branding agencies can find the best way to communicate the specific uses of company fonts.
