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Grow Your Logo into a Brand
By Jerome D. Smith and Lauren McMullen
Your logo may be distinctive, however, in a competitive business environment, nurturing your logo into a brand enables you to create and capture business value to win market share, enter new markets and gain competitive advantage.
If your company already has the vitamins and nutrients, such as a mission statement, value proposition, and core values, then you have many of the things you need to grow your logo into a brand and connect your employees, partners, and customers to a singular business vision in the marketplace.
Logo = 3D Representation, Brand = 3D Expectation
The goal of a logo is to mature from a representational symbol of a company, service, or product, into an expectation of performance in the mind of consumers.
When first created, logos represent conceptual ideas and exist as business cards; letterhead, cardboard stencils, and symbols on proposal covers. As they begin to evolve, they can grow into the sum of the corporate vision and symbolize the value proposition, core company values, characteristics, and attributes that are associated with a positive emotion -- that uniquely identifies a logo as a service offering in the mind of the consumer.
Through the evolving life of a logo, it is expected to become more accountable as it gains responsibility, visibility and stature. To reach this golden era of achievement, the logo matures to become a brand. It's simple existence, placed on marketing communications and correspondence; signify a presence and voice of the company that speaksto the consumer's expectations. This symbolic quality can retain consumers as well as attract new ones, through recognition and association of new product launches and business initiatives.
Thus, in the corporate setting, logos can become brands and contribute to the growth of the corporation - and to society with a healthy diet of strategy and nutrients. A brand can also be reproduced as a product line of sub brands within a brand family. Evolving from representation to expectation, involves growing from a conceptual idea to an awareness of recognized stature that compels a positive relationship of image and recall. Consistent use of targeted marketing communications materials can help achieve brand expectation of performance for products and services.
Corporate Identity + Marketplace Positioning =3D Growth Strategy. The logo and corporate identity is the frontline of your company's services. It's the company asset that represents your voice for a position in the marketplace.
While your logo is the visual signature of your idea, company, product or service, its practical use is the centerpiece of your corporate communications, as your corporate identity. The bottom line business value of your corporate communications is strengthened in the marketplace with consistent use of identity, and targeted content and message.
A corporate communications strategy will help your business gain market share - in a changing and competitive business landscape. Ultimately, your corporate brand should stand for the relationship your company has with its employees, partners, and customers. For a logo to come to life, to exist in the minds of your consumers - the company must be internally aligned to deliver the brand promise through the company's, culture, values, products and services. Employees must "live" the expectation of brand performance in their day-to-day interactions. Management must demonstrate their commitment to these values through leadership as well as corporate, marketing, and internal communications.
The world's strongest brands, such as Starbucks, Coca-Cola, IBM and Monster, clearly demonstrate this every day. These names, that first represented logos, now represent consumer expectations of performance. |
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