In the face-off between corporate identity and brand, brand wins. Successful businesses don’t waste money on facelifts any more.
Effective corporations are facing up to their responsibilities and tackling material issues – face first. This isn’t just a communications shift from CSR to ESG and whatever comes next, but a fundamental strategic shift to ensure future sustainability and growth. Big business is facing facts, actively addressing global challenges of climate, culture, technology, urbanisation and shifts in global economic power, and that affect us all. There’s no choice; we all face the consequences.
People – your people, people in the communities you impact and people that invest in your business – aren’t willing simply to take you at face value. They want to understand what is behind your name and your identity. Trust is hard earned and not built simply on what things look like – on the face of it.
Your brand is the interface between people and these critical themes. It facilitates their understanding of what you are doing in light of the huge changes we are all facing. So, your brand is not about surface, but what you mean to – and do in – the world. In the face of competition, your brand’s ability to have a voice in these matters is part of your essential value. A strong corporate brand.
'Simply put, strong corporate brands win both strategic and commercial advantage.'
We have extensive experience with global, corporate brands to know exactly what it is like for you – for brand, marketing and corporate comms executives – at the coalface. We know you can talk to your colleagues about investment in brand until you’re blue in the face. And what do you get? Blank faces. Or worse, they slam the door in your face.
So, let’s be clear, this isn’t a call from a branding agency to put a more human or acceptable face on things. It’s a message to the whole C-suite as you collectively stare down these big challenges: your brand is about so much more than your logo, a typeface, or just a pretty face. Brand is the necessary component for internal and external activation of all of your strategies and – to us – as plain as the nose on your…
As we now start to move forward positively, leaving behind face masks and Facetime, we’re here as a strategic partner to help you confront this journey, let’s hope more often face-to-face.
If what you are reading here resonates (even if the tortured play on words doesn’t…) how about giving us a smiley face? Even better, if you like the substance of our message, please get in touch with… what’s his face? Thom Newton, our Global CEO.
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