Brand Identity and Culture: Who Are You To The World?

If you ask most people what is a brand, they will point to a logo or tagline. But brand identity is far more than a visual or a phrase. A brand is shorthand for what your company represents in terms of its services / products (such as innovation, quality, variety, lower cost), the organization’s values (donates to nonprofits), how it conducts business (strict ethical codes, how it treats its employees), and how it treats its customers (friendly, rapid response, problem resolution). In other words, your brand identity reflects your company’s culture – attitudes, beliefs, behaviors – what people can expect to experience. When customers experience what they expect from your business, that’s what we mean by ‘delivering on the brand promise.”

What do you want your brand to convey about your business? Just as importantly, do you know what prospects, customers, colleagues, industry/trade organizations think about your brand (images, words, beliefs, feelings)? Companies with successful brands ask these questions again and again; then they act consistently to reinforce the brand identity they have created. What are you doing to communicate and reinforce your brand?

Brand identity is about the ‘total experience’. When your brand is evident in every aspect of your business and touch point – service/operations, physical facilities (if you have one), employee behaviors, transactions / purchasing, collateral, presentations and proposals, contract deliverables, telephone (etiquette and on-hold/closing messages), web content and interactivity, electronic communication (e-blasts, e-newsletter, e-mail) – you show that your actions have intent, and good intent at that (and by inference are not accidental). Your goal should be branding that seamlessly extends from within your organization to your prospects, customers, referral sources, and strategic partners. That’s how you build and maintain awareness, credibility and a reputation that others emulate; it’s how you set the foundation for long-term brand value.

Stephanie Leibowitz, Anthropologist At Work