The Hindu Business Line : A time to change

Most companies start small. Legends abound of small start-ups that began modestly in garages that have become Fortune 500 giants. India too has its fair share of companies that started small that have gladdened investors who had the wisdom or good fo rtune to place their bets on them. Being an entrepreneur myself, I can tell you that when most people start, their ambitions are limited. They have focus — call it tunnel vision if you will — and their entire energies seem to be trained on keeping the wolf from the door. Survival, cost control, keeping employee costs low, thinking twice before travelling by air, desperate for business, any business. Get the picture? Their priorities are hardly on branding.

Many enterprises have a name that is a combination of the names of the family members. Some others go a step further. They take this opportunity to demonstrate their love for their wives or daughters by naming the company after them. Others have professional-sounding names but not much thought is given to the visual identity. Legend has it that the Coca-Cola lettering was done by the accountant! We are all familiar with the legendary Nike swoosh having been designed by a creative college student. I wish all of us were so lucky! Be that as it may, the point I am making is that as companies grow in size and operations, develop geographically and on occasion globally, they need to evaluate their current identity. How current is the identity? Does it reflect the current personality? Does it take into account the current focus of the company? Is it designed consistently? I have seen different branch offices of major corporations sporting different identities as, for cost control, visiting cards are done locally at different centres, so have different sizes and font styles! So here is a quick question for you. How current is your corporate identity? Is it what you are today or does it represent what you were in the last decade?

Identity and Image

Very often companies confuse identity and image. Identity is what the company wishes to communicate. What it says in its Web site, its brochures, its corporate presentations and its appointment ads. Image is what the relevant target audiences believe about the corporation irrespective of the “corporatespeak”. You would be surprised to notice the gaps that exist in the minds of audiences, like, say, prospective employees. Their perceptions are moulded by what they have heard from their friends who probably work in the same company. Customers may have a completely different perspective of the company, having been guided by their own experiences with the company’s products or its outsourced call centre operations. Investors may have a lopsided view of the company’s reputation simply because an uncaring pen pusher in the finance department responded lethargically to an investor’s query.

As a consequence there could be substantial differences in the way the company views itself and the way its targets view it. So it is important to view current image. Any refurbishing of identity must start with an image audit among relevant audiences. What do they think of it? What are its strengths, weaknesses? What is it doing right and what is it doing badly? This will enable us to start with a reasonable understanding of the gaps between identity or what we are attempting to communicate and image or what is actually being taken out by the audiences. “Image is everything” said Andre Agassi and never has this been more important than in the designing of corporate identity.

People the key

People make an organisation and on occasion mar it. What do the people who work in a company think about it? Do they see it as dynamic or lethargic? Is it caring or callous? What is the essence of the organisation? Any exercise in identity is useless if it does not attempt to convey what the corporation is and what it can realistically be. Typically when we do an exercise of this nature we spend a lot of time with the CEO as he is setting the vision and goals of the organisation. It is important to understand the thinking of the management council or the steering committee of the company. But it is important to understand what the troops or the junior management thinks about the company as well. Very often, the views of senior management may have little relation to ground realities. An exercise of this nature will help the organisation to get a better fix of what the issues are that are bothering it.

It is extremely important to understand the brand’s current personality. Design properly executed can and will reflect this and address some level of aspiration. It is perhaps necessary to impart a sense of caution as well. There is a limit to aspiration. There is no point in a small consulting firm saying, “We want to be the Infosys of consulting.” Whilst that may be a good talking point internally, it is a poor design brief.

I always maintain that aspiration should be moderated by reality. The Maruti owner can probably graduate to a Hyundai Accent, but to expect him to have a Mercedes ‘S Class’ as his next car seems a bit too fairy-tale. Clearly it does not work in the area of identity.

The voice of the people

Many CEOs run democratic organisations and I admire them for it. People in the company actually have a point of view and are free to express them. This is wonderful everywhere else. It just does not work in approving identity. Listen to everyone, within your company only if you must and even ask your spouse if you are like most of us … but “for God’s sake, take the decision yourself” is my advice to CEOs. It does not matter if people think you are exhibiting shades of Hitler. Remember, it is for the organisational good!!! I find that people who are individually wonderful human beings become collectively disastrous in meetings where design is being discussed. Forgive me, the word I was searching for was “dissected”. So do not let that happen in your company.

What is your favourite colour?

One of the greatest things about design is its subjectivity. My favourite colour is red. I am sure yours is blue!! So how can you and I agree on design? While I am not for one instant suggesting that your logo should represent your favourite colour, I am merely suggesting that you need to place on the table any reservations that you may have.

In India, for instance, most people (myself included) tend to be superstitious. Many of us do not like black. However, internationally black is a colour with enormous design capabilities. Try selling that to an Indian businessman! It is important to remember that colours have tremendous significance. There is enough research to suggest what different colours stand for. “Colour creates emotion, triggers memory and gives sensation,” says Gael Towey. We need to also worry about what we will do in black and white as most letterheads may be in black and white. In India a lot of outdoor is still wall paintings. Will it be easily reproducible by the most inefficient of painters?

Just say it

An important component of the design is a tag line or a slogan. People remember some slogans just because they are so dramatic. GE’s “We bring good things to life” and Nike’s “Just do it” readily come to mind. Ideally a corporate slogan has to be more than merely clever. If it can reflect a business philosophy or a differentiating characteristic then we are home and dry. Of course, we often underestimate the power of frequent repetitions and exposure in media. People will remember slogans if they are catchy and more critically if they are exposed to them frequently. So to sum up …

Does your identity reflect where you are now and where you can realistically be?

Have you done a quick research?

Have you gone to a specialist?

Have you taken the decision of approving by yourself?

Have you backed the approved design with proper execution and exposure?

Just remember this: “Good design is good business” — John Watson, former Chairman IBM.

(Ramanujam Sridhar is CEO, brandcomm, and the author of One Land, One Billion Minds.)

More Stories on : Strategy | Corporate | Third Umpire

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page