Identity, Image and Reputation:

There is a close relationship between the company’s identity, image, and its impact on the reputation. This blog entry will take a closer look about how the image and the identity can influence the company’s reputation.

What Are Identity and Image?

A company’s identity is the visual manifestation of the company’s reality as conveyed through name, logo, motto etc. and communicated to the constituencies. Whereby the image of a company is the reflection of the organization’s identity. Organizations should get a good sense for their image, by conducting research with its constituencies. This approach could be qualitative or quantitative in nature.

Differentiating Organizations through Identity and Image

Consumers make decisions about homogenous products based on what the company’s image and identity is. For example you can buy gas at Exxon or Shell, the product will be the same. Under the assumption of identical prices and locations of the gas stations it is only the consumer’s image of the company, which will influences the decision. Therefore, an organization’s identity and image might be a strong difference that people use to distinguish for the next. 

Shaping Identity

To shape their identity each organization needs a vision that inspires. Thinking about a vision in terms of narrative or story can help to ensure the overall coherence of the company’s vision and the collective messages it sends constituencies. Furthermore, names and logos can also influence the company’s success. Coca Cola for example has a strong brand name, which has a high value that far exceeds its total tangible assets. Logos can be just symbols, like the Nike simple. For example you can change the name or logo if you want the branding of an organization to change. Putting it all together, constituency is the key and organizations should manifest itself consistently across all identify elements, from logos and mottos to employee behavior.

Identity Management in Action

If an organization want to change its corporation’s identity, the organization should follow the following 6 steps. First, the organization has to conduct an identity audit. They have to aks themselves how the general public view the organization and if the identity accurately reflect what is happening. Second, the organization has to set identity objectives. The senior management should set up these objectives. Thereafter, the organization should develop designs and names. This would be the next step in the identity process. Once the final design is selected, the organization should develop prototypes. To prevent the failure at this time, a diversity of people and viewpoints should be involved. The next step in this process would be the launch and communicate step. The sixth and last step is to implement the program, which can take years in big companies or just month in smaller one.

Image: In the eye of the beholder

Constituencies often have perceptions about a company even before they interact with it. Afterwards their ideas about the organization might be not the same, therefore it’s should be the organization’s goal to influence the public and to change their mind in the way we want to.

Building a solid reputation

The organizations identity and its image are aligned. So we have to do two things. 1) shape a unique identity and 2) project a coherent and consistent set of images to the public. Reputation and differs from image and identity because it is built up over time and it is a product of internal and external constituencies.

The question why reputation matters is answered by prominent surveys and rankings that seek to identify the best and worst among them. For measuring and managing reputation employees are good starting points and all constituencies should meet the organizations reputation. Corporate Philanthropy and social responsibility are gaining visibility and importance in the eyes of the customers throughout the last years.

Examples:

From my point of view, reputation, image and identity are very important. As I mentioned before, I worked for a bank couple month ago and the bank sector had really big problems in the past. The really lost their image, because of some mistakes like fraud and unfaithfulness. This caused that the bank’s reputation is not the same like some years ago. I think that a organization’s success hardly depends of the reputation, image, and identity.

Another example could be the image loss of some politicians in my home country. Some of them had really some personal problems. The mass media used these events to hurt this people and to destroy their image. Image is very important for people and organizations.

Links:

http://www.reputationinstitute.com/

http://www.businessgates.com/image.htm

http://www.brandidentityguru.com/brand_identity.htm

http://www.imageidentity.com/