Your corporate message consists of who you are, what you are selling and what differentiates you from your competitors. It is communicated to your target audience, the people who are going to purchase your product or service via many different avenues. They include your company name, your tagline, website, verbally in person, advertising and signage – to mention just a few.

Is your company communicating the right message, to the right audience in the right way that will assist in closing the sale? You may be asking your self “is what I am saying too much, too little or even the right kind of language for my audience to understand”?

To best answer these questions I am going to show a few examples that will hopefully help in answering your questions or may spark new questions that will lead to a clearer and more effective corporate message for your company.

There is nothing wrong on first look at this following sign for a wholesaler of fresh and frozen poultry, meat and seafood.

When I first saw this sign I was excited, it was local to where I lived and the thought of buying wholesale appealed to me. Then I read the rest of the sign. Suddenly I was not too enthused.

The fact they also make dog food put the quality of the meat into question and was an instant turn off (although I was excited about photographing it for this article).

Joking aside, there is nothing wrong with this sign if it communicates effectively to their target audience. I am obviously not their target audience.

It is unrealistic to think that your corporate message will resonate with everyone, it will not. Focus your time and efforts on having it communicate effectively with your target audience.

Once you have defined who your audience is, create a user profile of them. Are they male or female, age, sexual preference, nationality, income bracket, education, what do they do in their spare time, what do they wear, what vehicle do they drive, are they married, have kids or have pets. The best way to understand your target audience is to talk with them. Find out what type of language (verbal and pictorial) communicates effectively to them.

Unless you are a very skilled communicator and writer, hire a professional to help you sculpt the right messaging. I believe the person who created the ‘Ass Fruit’ sign at the top of this article could have used some professional assistance. I am quite confident that they are not actually selling Ass Fruit (even though it seems like a good bargain at only a dollar per bag) and that even the clientele of this Asian grocery store wouldn’t buy this product… although I may be wrong.

This following sign successfully communicates it’s message effectively. It is for an electricity company, and they are warning you not to enter the designated area.

It doesn’t get much clearer than that. But, what if you don’t read English? The company accompanied the wording with an image that clearly communicates the message to all non-English readers and even accentuates the message to those who understood the written message.

In summary, they are saying – Don’t. It will hurt. A lot.

As we live in a fast paced society you only have a few seconds to impress someone. As your company name is often the first point of contact you want it to impress right off the start.

It is similar to being in a book shop and looking at all the book covers, wondering which one to purchase. Does the title grab you, does the image entice you and is the author someone you have previously heard of? These are all hooks to have the ‘potential’ buyer turn the book over to read more about the book, before committing to buy or to move onto the next book.

This is why it is critical to have a company name that is aligned with your corporate message. If you are going to open a restaurant you wouldn’t want a name that is off putting. Like this one:

Would you like your food to have a lingering flavor in your mouth (I wonder if they charge a premium for this)?

Your message has to be truthful and honest. If you are claiming that you have the best, fastest, cheapest widget in the world you better deliver. Because if you don’t people are unlikely to be a return customer. Additionally, they are likely to communicate their disappointment with friends, family and colleges, spreading a negative brand association with your company. This alone can cripple a company.

The following company is promising in it’s name that it sells the ‘best’ pizza. Firstly, would you eat there and secondly, do you really think it would be the best pizza of your life?

There is a lot of work that has to be undertaken in creating the right corporate message. Also, once you have perfected it, the market may shift and you may have to adapt your message and your whole communication platform. But where do you start?

My suggestion is to consider the following questions:

• Who are you and what is your story?
• What are you selling?
• Who are you selling it to?
• Why should they care?
• Who is your competition?
• How do they communicate about their product or services?
• What differentiates you from your competition?

From your research and answers start to think about your corporate messaging. Hire a professional branding and communication company to help you get it right. There will obviously be an expense for this. But, if it can prevent your ass fruit from having a lingering flavour, then it may be the best investment your business will ever make.

Well he has done it again. Dyson has taken an everyday object and made it beautiful and a lot more effective.

They say on their site: The Dyson Air Multiplier™ fan works very differently to conventional fans. It uses Air Multiplier™ technology to draw in air and amplify it 15 times. With no blades or grille, it’s safe, easy to clean and doesn’t cause unpleasant buffeting.

I have the vacuum, all I need now is this fan and the Airblade and I’ll have the set.

Eva solo is a Danish company creating beautiful and simple recreations of everyday products.Check out the site.

If you are a business owner working on the development and growth of your own company it can be a challenge no matter what industry you are in. This can range from generating more sales, creating or finessing your marketing plan, sourcing manufacturing or creating a new brand for your business. It is your business, your baby, you want to make the right decision and you often question what the right decision or direction is. And, at the end of the day, it’s your bottom line that is affected so you’ll want to make a good decision.

So when Industrial Brand Creative choose to re-brand we knew it was going to be an interesting journey.

There have been challenges–some which we could have predicted and others that came as a surprise. There were also insights into the world of our clients.

Still, we needed to service our clients and run the business and we knew that our re-branding would from time to time be pushed down the priority list. Two years later, it had come to the point where it could not wait any longer. We were still getting great feedback about our website and other promotional materials, but for ourselves the identity we created in 1997 no longer reflected our capabilities and the calibre of work we provide to our clients. It was time to re-brand.

A major advantage was that we knew what we were doing–it’s what we do for our clients with very successful results. We knew all we had to do was to put ourselves through the same branding and design process and we would arrive at the outcome we were looking for.

The first stage was one of Discovery, Analysis, Research, Collaboration and Strategy.

This involved the business owners asking questions that included: Why change? What are we hoping to achieve? How will we know the branding process has been a success? We interviewed clients, staff, vendors and others to discover if what we think about ourselves is the same as what others think of us. Thankfully the results confirmed we were heading in the right direction.

Your brand is aspirational and goal-driven, but as a company you have to bridge the gap between where you are today and your aspirations. Your company has to walk the talk today and everyday. It must look and behave like the kind of company a high calibre client would hire.

The Brand Discovery Session was essential in creating our re-branding process. We dug into every aspect of the company, often facing difficult questions – some which took several months to resolve. We questioned the name of the company, who our target audiences are today and will be in the future, how we will reach them, what our message is and how will it resonate with them. We also looked at how we differentiate ourselves from other design companies and what our core service offering is.

The next phase involved consolidating the knowledge that we’d gleaned from the research and applying it. It involved brainstorming ideas, conceptualizing initial logo concepts, being strategic and making sure everything we did was relevant and aligned with our discoveries during the first phase. It was also during this phase we explored a new tag line. Parting from the old, ‘we’re not wired right’ we wanted something that was honest, concise and gave a better sense of what we are all about. WHERE IDEAS WORK is a statement of not only what goes on within the studio and the people that compose it, but it also says something about the outcomes we deliver.

Business owners can often be too attached to their company to be objective and decisive. The third and final phase saw us starting to whittle down iterations and make final decisions based on the research and strategy from the earlier phases. This foundation made it easier for making clear final decisions.
With the new identity and tagline complete, the next step was to produce all the marketing materials, website and internal documents. At the end of August we rearranged our production schedule for two weeks so the entire Industrial Brand team could focus on doing just this.

We knew from the outset that two weeks was a somewhat optimistic timeframe to complete the myriad of tasks at hand, and in the end it was. But without dedicating that time to the development of our own brand it would probably have continued to get pushed to the bottom of the priority list (below servicing clients). Now we had the momentum we needed to make the final push to completion.

Branding is all-encompassing and there’s a clear distinction between the creation of a new logo versus the formation or re-formation of a brand. Even though we’ve been re-branding for our clients for many years, undertaking our own project has provided us with further insight into client concerns about the process, and the confidence, financial commitment, trust and hard work that is required to create and implement a new brand.

That being said, branding or re-branding is worth it if done well and assuming there’s a sound rationale for it. It will reinvigorate and energize the company, its clients, prospects, staff, vendors and all others associated with it. It’s important to remember that a brand is organic, and grows and changes over time so must be managed. With the successful re-launch of Industrial Brand, we’re excited to watch as people take new notice of our new look and the platform from which we continue to build and grow our business.