What Is Corporate Branding? : The Ultimate Guide

Good branding is feasibly the most important thing when it comes to ensuring the success of your business.

Seth Godin, a business magnate, once said, “A brand is a set of assumptions, memories, stories and relationships that, collectedly, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another“.

People no longer want to purchase products from businesses in this era, especially one that brings an unsuited corporate image to mind.

Instead, they wish to purchase from people, where corporate branding becomes effective as it highlights your business’s personality or human side.

Your brand identity reflects what you represent as a business, your mission and whom you give out. In short, it’s the brand image that comes to people’s minds when they think of you.

Due to the increasing number of new start-ups and e-commerce industries, most organizations are strengthening their corporate brands, reflecting changing preferences among consumers.

For example, corporates like Tata Group, Life Insurance Company, Infosys, etc., has achieved the consumer’s trust majorly with the help of corporate branding. With their campaigns and other branding sources, they accomplish goodwill in the industry.

Corporate branding is all about invoking, maintaining emotions and feelings, mainly trust that makes them better about themselves with that brand.

When branding executes adequately, it tackles all the elements of marketing communication, such as words, graphic design, photos etc., to prompt an instant recognition on the part of the consumer and build that emotional connection.

Because of that, corporate branding is often best when it stirs rather than shakes a consumer emotion.

What is Corporate Branding?

Corporate branding refers to the phenomenon of promoting the brand name of an organization concerning specific products or services. A successful corporate branding represents the company’s mission, values and objectives.

The motive of embracing a corporate brand is to have a distinctive, compatible look and feel across every medium.

Corporate branding helps connect you to multiple stakeholders and impacts many aspects of companies, such as the corporate identity, sponsorships, brand extensions, etc. It helps to widen the economies of scope and position the brand in the market.

Corporate Branding vs Product Branding

In Corporate branding, you need to deliver general content. Since the brand is as per company-wide, it needs to capture everything that your company stands for. Also, it requires capturing the spirit of your company in marketing materials. It is essential to make sure that your corporate branding message is strong and extends to consumers.

On the other hand, in product branding, the message needs to be narrow. In this, the aim is to praise the standard of your product. It’s essential to set your brand to stand out from others in the market. Moreover, it is the centre of your marketing efforts.

For example, companies like SBI, Mahindra Group, HDFC Bank market their company brand as their primary marketing strategy. Though such companies sell many products, customers trust the company more than the products.

Brands such as HDFC Banks have various products like HDFC Personal Loan, Imperia Credit Cards, etc. On the other hand, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services Limited, etc., are the products of the Mahindra Group; these products have their own identities, follow their marketing strategies and are different from the parent company. Most of such product brands even have their exclusive logos and designs.

Why is Corporate Branding So Important

To increase your business’s sales, profits, and success, you need to excel out in the market. Indeed, the fundamental purpose of marketing is to establish a brand identity for the products and services.

People are very concerned about the corporation behind the product. They do not switch their opinions about the company from the outlook of its products or services. The primary reason behind this is due to the digital revolution and social media, which has developed incredible corporate transparency.

However, branding needs are not limited merely towards the promotion of products or services. Corporate branding helps consumers relate to a business and identify a wide range of product offers over time.

The benefit of effective branding is that it minimizes the need for extensive marketing, thus initiates for every new product as the consumer has a predetermined perception of its quality, reliability and purpose.

There are many reasons why corporate branding is vital to both small and more significant organizations. That is why it’s stated that it is never too early to start developing and building upon your company brand.

Now let’s discuss some of the reasons:

• Identity

Corporate branding gives your business an identity. Your slogan and logo design became the face of your business such that it can be recognized as one of its branding elements even if the name isn’t noticeable.

• Trust

Most of the consumers will only purchase products from certain companies because they know the brand for many years and the trust they gained. Therefore, the power of branding when it comes to trust issues can be enormous.

• Targeting

Corporate branding allows marketing efforts to target the most appropriate segments for product offers quickly. The branding distinguishes a company by lifestyle, geography and socio-economic factors. Branding helps consumers select products suitable for their needs, desires or wants.

• Value

Authoritative corporate branding can help to add value to your business. If you decide to sell the business in years to come, you could improve both value and saleability with solid branding.

Benefits of a successful corporate branding

We have discussed the importance of corporate branding. Now let’s have a look at the benefits that a strong brand offers at the different areas of the business.

Also Read: Business Branding: Strategies You Need to Create a Successful Brand

1. Human resources/Organizational development:

A clear understanding of the organization enables employees to act in a way that aligns with the strategic needs of the business. Also, if the employee gets the clarity of what it means to be a part of the organization, it will increase the overall satisfaction.

Suppose your parent brand has a clearly defined mission statement, employee guidelines, and this is reflected in your corporate branding. In that case, your employees are far more likely to feel connected and advocate for the company.

Once the employees get an overall understanding of the organization’s purpose and from their satisfaction, the organization will get the result in increased productivity.

2. The corporate and business functions

Corporate branding helps to get a deep placement, solidarity and understanding of who the business is, how it is different, to achieve the goals. It helps to achieve higher levels of innovation through working more valuably and cooperatively.

Another significant benefit for business functions is that it will increase the trust with key stakeholders, partners, intermediaries, etc. Also, branding helps align customer experience as employees deliver overreaching intent with transparency, persuasion and confidence.

3. Marketing

Corporate branding helps the company attract loyal customers, command premiums and helps the organization become a market leader. Organizations can achieve that by setting new examples in business production, marketing promotions, and offering the best level of customer services.

The significance of such branding is that you can serve multiple brands with the help of one advertising or promotional campaign as they all come under one roof.

The organization has the privilege to increase the number of new products, as potential buyers are familiar with the corporate brand and its recognition.

4. Sales

Once your brand gets a personal attachment towards a customer, they’ll recommend it to their friends, families etc. Thus, you’ll get new potential customers and develop sustainable relationships with them.

Even if your products price is comparatively higher than competitors, they’ll not go for that option because of the quality and trust they’ve gained from them. Therefore, corporate branding is a vital element when it comes to generating sales.

Moreover, a strong corporate brand will attract customers and later maintain loyalty. Winning the hearts of your customers is the key to effective long-term sales.

5. The value of the portfolio

The branding will increase the value of the company’s products and services. Once the organization achieves equity with time, there is an opportunity to transfer its benefit to its portfolio of brands.

The value comes from the time and money that corporations invest in developing a brand that gradually becomes recognizable to consumers.

Those who have positive experiences with products will naturally respond more favourably in the future. In contrast, those familiar with the brand but not its products will already have a built-in sensation of the brand that makes marketing easier.

Below we discuss some examples of corporate branding

1. Tata Group

Over the last decades, most Indian and international brands tracking surveys have ranked the TATA brand at the highest levels. It is more visible and has more positive connotations than any other Indian company or industrial group.

In 1997, a brand consultancy valued the TATA corporate brand at $37 billion. But, later, by 2017, it consistently topped the brand league in India with a valuation of $73.9 billion, a twenty-fold rise within this period.

Though, for large conglomerates like the Tatas, the value of all brands of the Tata Group can be far more than the value of the Tata corporate brand itself.

From 2017, Tata has made a growth of $135 billion by the end of 2019. Now, it is the most valuable brand in India and stood 86^th in global rankings.

2. Life Insurance Corporation

Life Insurance Corporation, the top largest insurance company in India, is owned by the Indian government and headquartered in Mumbai.

LIC has materialized as the third strongest and the tenth most valuable insurance brand globally.

When most of the top 100 valuable insurance brands declined by 6 per cent, LIC’s brand value increased by almost 8 per cent to $8.65 billion.

With over 250 million customers, LIC has been the most trusted company to fix the future of families and individuals for more than five decades.

LIC literally offers what the customers lack, i.e. insurance cover and preserve what the customers have, i.e. their hard-earned money and trust.

3. Infosys

Infosys is an Indian multinational company information technology consulting company. It also provides services related to business consulting and outsourcing assistance.

It is the second-largest IT Company after TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) and the 596^th largest company in the world based on revenue.

The organization enables clients in more than 50+ countries to stay ahead of the innovation curve and surpass the game. It has more than 187,000 employees working within it.

Infosys growth can be witnessed since it started trading in India in 1993. The main reason behind the success is their business ability to brand their organization both in Indian, international markets and the strategic implementation they applied from the initial stage towards branding.

The organization recorded a sequential growth of 2 per cent in consultant currency terms during the fourth quarter of FY21, with revenues coming in at $3,613 million. The full-year revenue stood at $13.5 billion, compared to $12.7 billion in FY20.

4. Mahindra Group

Mahindra Group is an Indian multinational amalgam headquartered in Mumbai, India. It has function operations in over 100 countries around the globe. It is contemplated among the topmost creditable Indian industrial houses with market leadership in utility vehicles as well as tractors in India.

It is the fifth top valued brand in India, with a growth of 35.5% hitting $ 5.3 billion in last year.

From farm tractors to financial services, IT services, Mahindra Group is growing tremendously, thus achieving more strength. The group has also been making solid intrusions into the US markets as it nurtures solid global aspirations.

From 2011 onwards, the Mahindra Group is following a new corporate brand, Mahindra Rise, to unify Mahindra’s image across industries and geographies. The brand positions its products and services as inspirational, supporting customers’ ambitions to rise.

5. Bharti Airtel

Bharti Airtel is an Indian telecom public limited company commonly known as Airtel, currently operating its business across South Asia, Africa, and the Channel Islands.

Due to its operation in 19 countries, now Airtel is the 5^th largest telecom operator globally with 283.7 million mobile services, 2.4 million homes and 16.6 million Digital TV services. The trust and goodwill they gained through their branding have touched the customers, also ensuring customers’ satisfaction through their service.

Airtel is India’s largest integrated network provider and the second-largest mobile promoter in Africa. By the end of September 2020, Airtel had approx. 450 Mn consumers across its operations.

Despite the price war in India’s telecom sector and Reliance Jio’s growing might, Bharti Airtel is the only network operator to make it into India’s top 10 most valued brands.

Being India’s leading telecommunication network company, Bharti Airtel Limited reported a revenue of over $11.69 billion in FY20. In spite of the increase from the previous financial year’s income, the company reported a net loss of around $4.24 billion in that year.

Conclusion

We have discussed the importance, benefits of corporate branding and seen top companies’ examples of how they achieved their goals through branding.

Have you ever put effort to understand how crucial corporate branding is for your business? We’d love to hear your experiences and the challenges you faced in respect of branding.

At our branding agency, we believe in creating inspiring branding to empower brands and help you to understand the importance of branding for a business. Our dedicated experts are ready to assist you once you contact us.

Author: Anush Malik

Being a strategist’s head and a long term visionary personality aims to achieve excellence in branding, packaging and digital marketing field. My 15 years of design experience and masters degree ais my strength which keeps me motivated and keep me going positively. I have participated in extensive branding design conquests in India, USA, Australia and New Zealand with winning zeal. My objective is to encourage start-ups and hence involves actively in the articles which will act as a productive intake of knowledge for them. Do connect me personally via my LinkedIn and I love to share my expertise with you.