Corporate branding: Differentiate yourself among competitors

Building a brand's image

Nowadays, markets grow faster and faster, and there's always a larger amount of brands operating in each market. Therefore, the most important thing for a company to do is differentiate from competitors, look for different ways of delivering specific and unique value. This is what we call Unique Selling Proposition (USP).

It is well known that companies have to be different, but finding the uniqueness will always be difficult. That's why there's a process to follow step by step to achieve this highly sought after uniqueness.

Steps to differentiate your brand among competitors

1- Know your brand: Seek for its values, its mission and vision. Identify very well what product or service you have to offer.

2- Know your segment: By segment we mean the limited group of people you product or service will be directed to. Therefore, most of your sales will be represented by this group of people. For example: young Spanish citizens, with an upper middle income, that work in the pharmaceutical market.

3- Identify distinctive assets of your brand: all brands have some key and non-tangible assets that differentiate them and create brand recognition. These assets would be considered as logos, slogans, brand sounds, brand symbols, (like Netflix's iconic "Tudum"), packaging, brand symbols, or even jingles and music.

4- Deliver value to your segment: identify ways to create customer value. Customer Value can include: price value, performance value, relationship value and emotional value.

Benefits of corporate branding

By incrementing value through experiences of the brand (perceived by customers) the company's customer base will increase, as well as the market share and therefore penetration. And not only that, but that value, created by the process of corporate branding, will lead to an increase of customer loyalty towards the product or service, and the opportunity to increase the purchase frequency will be higher.

A strong corporate branding strategy makes your company more attractive to top talented employees. Workforce efficiency will always create more value. Consider it as a value chain, constantly creating value.

Remember, a brand will only exist in the consumer's mind. That's why, the image of the brand, the values, and uniqueness must highlight for it to be recognized and recalled by the consumers. For this sense of uniqueness, the brand's voice is very important. A brand's voice will define your way of speaking, the way you communicate with your audience.

With all this said, it is clear that the main role of corporate branding is to create a sense of trust and credibility, as well as to increase loyalty towards the company rather to a specific product or service, and here is where we identify the difference between corporate branding and product branding. Therefore, a good corporate branding strategy would be making your customers feel and love the brand.

Importance of brand recall and brand recognition

First, let's understand what we mean by recall and recognition, and the difference between them.

Brand recall: We understand it as the ability the consumer has to retrieve the brand from memory when given the product category, purchase or usage situation as a cue. For example, if i ask you to name me the first brand that comes to your mind regarding digital business card, and you name KADO Networks, that would mean you recall KADO Networks better than the competition.

Brand recognition: We understand this term as the ability to recognize the brand before any exposure to the brand when given the brand as a cue. For example, If I show you the logo of Kado Networks, without the name of the brand, and you can still name it, that will be considered as a high brand recognition.

A study published by Statista.com, investigated the most recognizable insurance brands in the United Kingdom for 2022. This are the insights.

Top 5 in the chart and their strategies:

1. AA: The brand recently changed their brand identity by updating the design for their posts' templates, refreshing the image of the brand of an evolving auto market.

2- Aviva: on the other side, Aviva centers the customer and company's growth as the main goals for the brand.

3- BUPA: The company positions itself as a brand that cares for health and wellness of their customers with their brand building campaigns.

4- Direct Line: The company aims to locate the customer as the center of their purpose, all they do and offer is for the customer. People love to feel they're the center of attention and to know what benefits the product or service will give to them.

5- RAC: The brand updated their logo for the last time in 2019, making a fresher image for the audience, and making them know that something inside the company is changing constantly, that they are evolving.

Now that we know the importance and impact of corporate branding on engaging consumers and to value your brands benefits, it is important to analyze how to advertise following these principles and thoughts.

Advertising: difference between sales activation and brand building

In advertising, companies are not always aiming to increase sales directly or immediately. There's a difference between Sales activation and Brand building. The first one mentioned aims to, generate sales immediately, usually accompanied by a call-to-action, while Brand building wants to communicate the values of the brand, show off their distinctive brand assets, and create a strong brand resonance with the audience. Of course, the main purpose, will always be increase market share, but one is focused in the long term and the other in the short term.

Advertising is the best technique to make your brand grow. All of the biggest companies in the world spend billions of dollars to strengthen their brands through advertising, which we know now that it's a good way of brand building. Here are some of the most advertised brands in the United States in 2022, by advertising spending (in billion of dollars).

Finally, we can understand that the importance and main role of corporate branding is to deliver value, increase brand awareness, and create loyalty towards the company. There is not always the intent to generate sales immediately, cause sometimes big companies aim to strengthen their brand through advertising, showing the values and distinctive assets. For example, Coca Cola, launches a campaign in christmas, showing their unique creation of Santa Claus as we know him (with a red suit and the white beard) only to show off their brand assets and values to reinforce their image inside the consumer's mind.