Corporate Identity: Relevance in Transformation of Logos in FMCGs

Abstract

Corporate Identity is the manner which a corporation or business present themselves to the public or their stake holders The term corporate identity is said to be the combination of various designs, colour schemes, visual statement supported by statements to communicate to the ultimate consumers about the business philosophy.  The identity is the main feature of any corporate to describe the value that a firm wants to view itself, how it needs to be seen by others and the way it leads to recognise and remember by others.

Why firms resort to Corporate Identity? Visual identity is one of the most important parts in the corporate Identity. It is very critical for companies to constantly maintain a brand image, logo, colour and symbols which represent their Business, service or Products. But in recent past most of the firms have either changed their Logo design and colour or the symbols that were used to denote their products and services. For example Life buoy soap was written and symbol was different in 70s than what we are visualizing now. Why Firms change their corporate Identity?

There are basically four reasons to change the corporate Identity: Merging, Expanding, Revitalizing and Integrating.  While these reasons are highly professional and meant to create new market and customer base, certain firms have to resort to change in the corporate identity due to their “Brand Miscommunication”. An Example is an advertisement released by Dove in October, 2017 which received a major Social media Backlash. It was blamed as the company has become racist.

Five criteria have been identified by Kim (2005), to understand if the shift in corporate identity is done by the firm. They are;

Distinction: does this identity change help the company to stand out from the previous perception of the Customers?

Interrelation: Does the corporate identity change influence each area of the company?

Innovation: Does this change bring creative set of new standards for the market?

Communication: Does this change effectively state why the company exists?

Affection: Does the change bring any emotional influence on the viewers?

This research paper tries to address these issues of Corporate Identity, changes brought in by the firms, reasons and implications through reviewing the literature as this is sparsely researched area.