Identity, Image & Reputation

It became apparent to me that every corporation has a corporate story, an identity in which the corporation would like to be portrayed to their stakeholders. And this list of stakeholders, as we’ve learned, goes on and on. From customers, to employees, to suppliers and investors, the stakeholders must deem your corporation with an identity, image and reputation. This stands true right down to the core of a company or individual.

In the realm of integrated marketing communications, a company’s identity, image and reputation all combine to form the bases of who and what a company stands for. Without a strong identity, image or reputation, the act of building brand awareness would be difficult. And consequently, the entire process of designing an integrated marketing communications plan would be rather difficult.

This is why I believe that understanding “who” you are, weather on a corporate level or down to an individual level, is the most important step in any marketing plan, integrated of not. And that understanding the difference among identity, image and reputation, will help in the overall understanding of “who” you are.

Of course we all know “who” we want to be and “how” we want others to perceive us; however, there is a great difference in “who” we want to identify ourselves as, and “how” we are perceived. This is identity versus image. Corporations attempt to achieve a consistent identity from top to bottom. Through consistency in identity it is a much easier task to achieve consistency in image.

I bring up the factor of individual identity and image as the perception of a company often goes right to the core of employee interactions with individual customers. If this individual identity awareness did not exist among the employee it would be difficult to present an image of a corporation with consistency to what the corporation proclaimed to be.

Perhaps it is this strong correlation to success stemming from consistent identity, image and reputation that leads companies into well developed training and development programs. When we look deeply into brand awareness, it is often the heart and soul of the employees within a corporation that we see.