Corporate Branding – Overlooked as fuck.

Most early-stage ventures focus so much on product branding, that corporate branding is sitting on a shelf taking dust.

Your corporate image has to answer to all parties, when the product needs to target end-users or consumers.

I’ve seen many developing products, SaaS software applications, or solutions that blow the competition out of the water but forgot their true purpose or mission why they actually started and take a beating in the business landscape because of not giving a fuck about what’s happening right in front of them.

It won’t matter when your business in full maturity or early-stage, the key principles stay the same. You still need to determine your target markets; you still need to benchmark your businesses versus the competition and most certainly define the outstanding qualities you can offer as a brand that crushes others.

Logo

It’s not just slapping a logo on a wall or business card. It’s the ability to make your brand alive by recognition, what it stands for, why you are doing this, and for whom. Too many brands have been annihilated because some random friend found a color too bright, or the logo was too minimal. You should always consider feedback, but never forget what, how, why, and who.

Don’t be that business.

Don’t be the one claiming there is no time or resources to rebuild that framework and figure out your corporate DNA. Don’t be the one stalling because it will only cost you more long-term.

There are companies around for more than a decade and still figuring out what the fuck they need to do because their sales are flatlined, new competition bulldozed them over and they’re sticking to old values that might work in the ’90s but won’t help in a world where corporate strategy and digital are walking hand in hand.

Culture

Your corporate branding strategy gives you the opportunity to present yourself as a whole. Which lines you take in activities, how your internal policies are, how you uphold business ethics in your vertical. Name it, there are fuck tons of subjects to go over.

But what’s important for your entire organization is how activities and strategies can shift when acquiring competition, add subsidiaries, or a merger with smaller entities that changes the corporate architecture of the total business.

Whilst products or services might be consumer-oriented, it’s the job of executives to maintain cultures and keep the corporate brand intact when performing strategic moves.

Respecting the rules of corporate branding, reflects in leadership qualities. C-suite should build their corporate playbook, take a few steps back to define their true mission and pass that on to human resources so your venture isn’t always hiring the top graduates, but the ones that fit within your organisational structure and support your idea the moment they walk in.

Don’t overlook it, and definitely don’t ignore it, if you’re planning building a unicorn.