Creative Corporate Control

Creative Corporate Control

Organisations, like people they have personalities. Identities whether corporate or personal are complex and highly influential. In this presentatoin we will explain what corporate identity is, indicate why it is so important, examine why it is very difficult to create and finally demonstrate why it must be design rather agency driven.

What is corporate identity?

Corporate identity is a description of the very soul and ideology of an organisation. Definitions of corporate identity abound, but Bernstein (1984) argues that corporate identity is a planned assembly of visual cues by which the audience can recognise the company and discriminate one company from another and which may be used to represent or symbolise the company.

It has been fashionable in the west to ridicule corporate identity as does Garland (1992):-

“Lets face it corporate identity is a worn-out case: a puffed up monstrosity that’s been oversold, overpriced and overrated.”

Garland goes on to say that corporate identity was born the 1940s in the US.

Both these attitudes are incorrect and misleading. In fact Eygptologists could point out that all the pharos fromKing Zoser to Ramses III have not only embraced corporate identity but have used the symbol of the bee honey to represent royalty. The bee is a wonderfully benign and positive symbol. It is both a provider and protector.

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As we will demonstrate later all the religions of the world have widely adopted the use of various corporate identities.

Even a brief examination of the historical perspective of corporate identity reveals that through out time all human activities, whether be the sacred , governmental or profane, have been very widely used. Before the invention of money each sovereign ruler used the seal to embody his power, authority and continuity. When money came into use corporate identity ran riot.

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It has not looked back since.

Why is corporate identity so important?

Golzen (1988) points out that corporate identity is an expression of the core values, just as personal identity or personality is the core of the person. When corporate identity works, it is a reflective mirror image of the organisation. When it fails it can be like an obsequious flatterer who only reveals what he thinks you will like to see but eventually will be disastrous.

It is common mistake to think of corporate identity exclusively in terms a graphic identity. It should also embody the three dimensional design of architecture.

Why is corporate identity so difficult create?

The reason why corporate identity is so difficult to create is because of the uniqueness of all organisations. As Olins (1989) points out:-

“Every organisation is unique, and the identity must spring from the organisations own roots, its personality, its strengths and weaknesses.”

The only way to truthfully to discover and portray an organisation’s corporate identity is to penetrate its ideologies. To be able to this a detailed understanding of the organisation culture is vital.

Culture is one of those words which every one uses be is rarely fully understood. Even academics have great difficulty in coming to terms with its definition. Wuthnow (1984) complains of its trivilalisation by it being often refered to as that residual realm left over after all other forms of observational behaviour have been removed. Because culture is largely intangible it can not be measured, it can only be interpreted. Cultural traits are qualitative by nature, and as such need to be decoded, interpreted and explained in order that it may be understood. Van Mannen (1984) and Schein (1986) argue that culture should be seen as a set of solutions to the key problem of survival that all organisations have to grapple with; the problem of establishing and maintaining equilibrium between its internal integration and its external survival.

This makes very difficult for the corporate identity consultant because if the client organisation already achieving its objectives it makes it vertually is impossible for this organisation to truthfully explain its own ideologies. The reason for this is due to the fact that when problems are solved they not kept in our immediate consciousness. Instead they pushed back into the individual and corporate subconscious. If the equilibrium problem has been solved there is no need to worry about it or analysis it. It becomes entirely intuitive. Deal & Kennedy (1982) identity four occasions when the establishment of a corporate identity is especially vital:-

(a) when there are major external environmental

changes happening

(b) when organisations find themselves in a highly

competitive market conditions

(c) when the organisation is considered to be

either mediocre or poor

(d) when the organisation is on the threshold of

becoming much larger in size

All of these instances are examples of imbalance between the organisations need for internal integration and external survival.

Anthropologists have known for decades that the culture of an organisation is the linchpin of survival of both individuals and organisations themselves. The core of any culture is its ideologies. These are the fundamental driving forces which impel people and organisations into action. Because culture is largely invisible clues have to be discovered from tangible artifacts, then interpreted. These clues are like the layers of skin on an onion. Pettigrew (1979) there are five sequential layers through which one has to penetrate before an understanding of the corporate ideologies are reached; language, semiotics, myths, beliefs and rituals.

Language

Language is more than vocabulary, it is an enabling mechanism which explains why and how people behave. The following are examples of this perspective of culture:-

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Semiotics

The language of signs has been described by Eco (1984) as comprising of three main categories of signs; symbols, ikons and indexes. This is an important distinction because creators of corporate identities should be fully aware of the different type of usage and impact the three forms of signs can have.

Symbols

These are abstract manifestations of a particular reality one is trying to create. It is most useful when used in an international context when written language would not be universially understood.

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Ikons

Normally these are representational and figurative in from. They tend to literally be a mirror image of the concept being promoted. There particular power is that they can be easily recalled to memory by visualisation.

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Indexes

These are devices which engage in enigmatic surrealism. They are the most powerful because they have the potential to penetrate our consciousness.

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Myths

Levis-Strauss (1945) declared that a myth is a universal primitive non-rational logic. Behind the stories embedded in myths are messages wrapped up in code. Myths are especially powerful because they do not have to be true to be believed. This is not lost by politions and powerful throughout the ages. Much of modern western medical clinical treatment works because the patient has an implicit belief that the medic really does know what he is doing. Indeed shareholders and employees often think that corporation presidents do have a detailed understanding of how their firm works. Linbolm (1970) was probably closer to the truth when he described management as the science of muddling through. Here are few examples how myths have been establish and manipulated in corporate identity.

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Rituals

Rituals are a necessary part of all human existence because they perform the vital role of dramatising order. As humans we can not easily tolerate ambiguity and uncertainty for extended periods of time so we have create systems of behaviour which will deliver an environment which provides predictability and stability. Although rituals are potent they are are usually enshrined in invisible social boundaries which often can only be discovered by the outsider when are violated. The use of ritual has been manipulated by corporate identities in the following ways:-

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Since the period of the industrial revelution national and world economies have moved into a period which the the majority of economic activity is coming from the service sector. Opportunities for effective corporate identity creation are espcially important for such organisations. These organisation often obtain and sustain their businesses by relationship marketing. Banks and insurance companies operate on the basis of sustaining trust. Trust is highly intangible. To make it more concrete an appropriate corpoarte identity is vital part of their business strategy. It is perhaps interesting to note that BCCI also incorporated the image of the comb of the honey bee in their corporate identity.

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As the BCCI case demonstrates reputation is lake vaginity; time consuming and difficult to obtain but very easy to lose.

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Why corporate identity needs to design rather agency driven

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Olins (1979)

“The corporate identity practiser shuffles uneasily from foot to foot in a kind of half light somewhere between the advertising agency, the PR man, the management consultant and the architect”

Stop shuffling and start designing!

The CID can be communicated in three main ways:-

What it looks like [design]

What it says [advertising and PR]

What it does [its actual behaviour]

The role the design industry has to offer in delivering promises to clients

Corporate ID consultants have confused the features of CID with the benefits to specific clients.

Evaluation of the effectiveness of corporate identity in major international corporations

BT Dutch PTT

Shell Q8,Exxon

Mercedes Benz

Insurance companies and banks