Corporate Branding Explained
Corporate branding is when a company’s logo or products are instantly recognizable. Probably one of the best examples of this is the Coca-Cola® bottle. You can be on any continent of the world, in any country and Coke is there. Their logo, their curved bottle, the red colors, and the name is one everyone knows. What is most incredible is that even very small children ask for Coke. And not only is the drink itself recognizable, but in the US and Canada, their image of Santa Claus is an icon. Their songs and jingles from years ago are still familiar to people. This is what real corporate branding is about.
Further, corporate branding does not have to be one product. It can be several similar products branded under the same umbrella but different from the company name. An example of this are LYSOL® products owned by Reckitt Benckiser. 
No-one knows the corporation’s name even though it is a major, international conglomerate. But if a new Lysol product was launched tomorrow, it would gain instant recognition because Lysol has been a trusted brand for generations. It was popular as a bathroom cleaner and when germs became an issue in society, the disinfectant wipes were created. People bought them not because the wipes worked, but because the name Lysol was a familiar household name.
Another point that is interesting about corporate branding is that the product does not have to be the focus of the brand. Yes, the product is the key, but the brand may be known for something else. Take a look at this statement from BMW’s website for the MINI brand.
“MINI is part of a lifestyle that is cosmopolitan and confident, ready for everything.” The car is not sold because it is cheaper, it is not sold because it is smaller. On the contrary, its appeal is the lifestyle. The brand epitomizes a specific lifestyle. If it was just an economical car with good gas mileage, it would not be the icon it is.
Nike Soccer: Brand Marketing
This is a prime example of a typical Nike branding commercial. It has quite a few standard characteristics that just seem to do very well for the brand.
- Celebrity Athletes
- Not a huge focus on any specific product
- Extreme/Eyecatching performance – mostly taken from a non-competitive arena.
- The Nike Swoosh as a “The End” marker.
I love these, I really do!
Swisscom – 2008 Rebranding
Here’s a great example of a rebranding done for Swisscom – the biggest name in the telecom-market in Switzerland. Great work, as usual, by London-based branding agency Moving Brands.Make sure to check out the video after the jump, too!
Swisscom, one of the leading brands and a market leader in Switzerland (with more than 60% average share of market), is perceived as one of the most trusted brands by Swiss people. The Swisscom re-brand is the final step to a major restructuring of the whole Swisscom organisation which will see the previous group companies Swisscom Fixnet, Swisscom Mobile and Swisscom Solutions cease to exist. These companies will be replaced by Swisscom (Switzerland) Ltd with the divisions Residential Customers, Small & Medium-Sized Enterprises and Corporate Business. Swisscom’s fixed-line, mobile communications infrastructures and IT platforms are to be merged into a single division as part of the same process.
The pitch process began in the first half of 2007, and from the outset, and in light of the organisational re-structuring that was on the horizon, we argued strongly that what was at that stage merely a ‘corporate design’ brief, needed to in fact be elevated to a complete and audacious ‘brand renewal’ brief.
Following an initial round of pitches, we then found ourselves on a shortlist of several agencies from across Switzerland and Europe. The Moving Brands concept was selected for implementation by the Swisscom board of directors in November 2007.
Our concept for Swisscom centres on creating just a cross-platform, dynamic identity. This will form a strong and clearly defined single axis around which every element of the Swisscom organisation can then move.
The new Swisscom identity, developed by ourselves with Swiss typographer Bruno Maag, will be launched in the first quarter of next year. It will be ‘an innovation for Switzerland and the industry.’
To see more of the design please go to www.swisscom.com/brand-2008