Corporate Image, Identity, and Communication
Image
The word “image” is used to define many things or phenomena, mainly due to the polysemy of the term. This can be seen in encyclopedias or dictionaries, where various definitions of “image” can be found.
Image is a variable of modern management that has gained importance due to the revaluation of intangible assets. As a transversal policy, it involves all parts of the business. The image is the result of not only communication but also the management of the company. Any conduct of the undertaking can be assessed in terms of image.
Corporate Identity
A set of attributes associated with history, the business plan, and corporate culture that define the essence of an organization, identifying and differentiating it.
Corporate Culture
Social construction of organizational identity as expressed through a set of assumptions and values shared by most members. It is the organization’s ideology.
Corporate Personality
The image that the organization voluntarily projects to create a positive impression among its publics. It is expressed through communication and visual corporate identity. It is the organization’s public persona.
Corporate Image
The overall opinion that a particular public has of an organization, formed from the synthesis of three basic inputs:
- The behavior of the organization
- Its culture
- Its corporate personality
Corporate Image Types
- Company Image: The overall corporate image itself.
- Branding: A set of visual and verbal signs that identify and represent the organization in the minds of the public.
- Product Image: The position of products and services against others in the market.
Building Image
Three sources of information are involved in building an image:
- The mass media
- Interpersonal relationships
- Personal experience
“The corporate image is a strategic element and a principle of management.”
“We need to create certain impressions in the public.”
“The image consists of values that are as real as reality itself to the public.”
“To the public, the image you have of an organization is its true identity.”
Corporate image can be summarized as:
- What the company is
- What the company does
- What the company says
We turn it into value-added and a competitive advantage.
Visualization
Having an image implies the existence of a process. Two main features stand out:
- The duration of the process: This may be more or less long, depending on the frequency of impacts received.
- The psychological intensity with which the image relates to the receiver. As a result of the processing time, a new dimension appears: the persistence of the image in social memory.
Corporate Identity
A coordinated set of visual signs through which the public instantly recognizes and memorizes an entity or group as an institution.
Signs of Corporate Visual Identity
- The logo, symbol, or chromatic range
1. Logo
Designates and signifies. It is one of the highlights of a company’s visual identity and is more explicit. It is a graphic, visual, or auditory-verbal representation that works for a person, company, institution, or product.
Usually, the logo consists of:
- The icon or isotype: The visual symbol (e.g., Apple’s apple).
- The name: The verbo-visual or phonetic representation of the basic element.
- The mark is the registered name for commercial use.
The logo, as part of the visual identity of a company or institution, is the typographic representation of the brand name.
2. Symbol
Its function is to impact feelings. It is a stimulus that refers to a meaning outside of itself and with which there is generally a causal relationship. For example, the tobacco company Camel uses a camel as a symbol, by convention, although this animal has nothing to do with tobacco.
A symbol can be an image, figure, or device that has a conventional meaning.
Pictogram: A schematic sign representing a real object. It is an analog image. E.g., people playing soccer. In the design of a pictogram, all extraneous details are deleted.
Two related concepts are:
- Ideogram: The outline of an idea, concept, or phenomenon that is not viewable. E.g., a question mark.
- Emblem: A conventional figure heavily institutionalized through an indirect formulation of the phenomenon. E.g., a shield.
Signs of Chromaticity
Color has a strong symbolic and emotional meaning. From a semiotic point of view, color is the opposite of coded language or sequential or linear systems, such as oral or written language. Color has no form and is not isomorphic. However, it is strongly reminiscent of human feelings.
Reputation
Arises from the comparison in the mind of the individual of the image of a company (the characteristics assigned to it based on experience and knowledge) with what the individual considers to be the ideal values and behaviors for this type of business.
“Reputation is not the image of an organization, but a judgment or evaluation made on that image.”
“Reputation is the result of the assessment of the different audiences that have a relationship with the company:”
- Customers
- Investors
- Employees
- Society
- Government
- Competition
“The hardest thing for an organization is to ensure its reputation is good for everyone.”
Corporate Communications
Corporate communication refers not only to messages, but the conduct by which all firms convey information about its identity, its mission, its way of doing things and even about their customers. Involves interaction between people who change in some measure their attitudes or behaviors
Corporate communication acts as an intermediary between reality (identity) corporate and corporate image
.