Identity

Transforming Performance through Integrated Identity Management

Mark Rowden

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351156141
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Mark Rowden's first book, The Art of Identity was internationally recognized as a seminal work on the creation and definition of corporate identity. This much-revised and extended edition, simply titled Identity, offers further crucial knowledge about how to integrate identity into the wider commercial and financial objectives of the organization. Rowden's radical approach dispenses with common branding misconceptions and explains how to interrogate your strategy and objectives as never before through the relative weighting of three key 'averages': product, distribution and identity. He demonstrates how, by re-examining market position and values on this basis, you can redefine the content and focus of your identity, grading all visual and behavioural communications - an approach called, show tell do - into critical priorities, and then distill key values into firmwords, against which all communications can be rapidly focused as well as measured. The real examples in this book demonstrate firmwords in action. Later chapters illustrate issues of style, colour, names, logos, typefaces, structure, and how the challenges of fashion can be met. Identity also argues a new methodology for managing the creative process between the organization and its creative suppliers.

Emotions

Managing Illusion

This book is about how to develop a powerful identity for your organisation and its products. You will learn a new perspective on building and then deeply integrating it into your overall operations. This goes beyond the status of the identity that is only the decorative add-on to the organisation or product it represents. You will gain a deeper understanding, and your identity will be a new vantage point from which you can explore your operational strategies as never before.

all identity is a lie, or is it?

You need to be aware that many of the ideas within this book will challenge your existing thought patterns and are intended to impact on your organisational structure and commercial attitudes more deeply than previous understandings about the role of identity. This will form the basis of a new drive towards greater productivity and therefore profit. The interrogation of what is often mistakenly thought of as a ‘black art’ will result in your realising a greater sense of your true competitive advantages, a practical knowledge of the values that underpin your future success, and an improvement in the relationships and contributions of your internal and external creative people. In addition you will learn how to prioritise your marketing resources –in order to gain more output for less input –and in making these resources work smarter and harder you will learn how to rapidly measure their focus and quality so that all within the team can understand their purpose and desired effectiveness. The relationship between marketing and all other commercial operations within your organisation may, as a result of reading this book, never be the same. You will realise this with just a few, deceptively simple, compass bearings. The words in this book are intended to stimulate a valuable level of thought and debate within your team.

It is important to understand that whatever you currently believe about your identity, it is unlikely to be an accurate reflection of who you truly are. If you had no ambition, the quality and content of this identity and its portrayal of your organisation would be of little interest or consequence to you. However, it is assumed that you do have ambition, or you wouldn’t be reading this book. By definition this means you have objectives already, or you are charged with the responsibility of defining some objectives. Before you begin to define these objectives you need to know one thing –that ultimately, all identity is a lie. That is not said to shock, but to ensure that you realise one critical point: identity is a mask you choose to wear; or it is a mask you choose to see. As such, it appears as a fixed image within an otherwise moving world.

This does not mean that a managed identity is necessarily untruthful. It is an acknowledgement that people and organisations are in a permanent state of change, and the image they wish to project may be at variance with the more exact truth of where they are today. Their image may be the intention of what they want to be or how they wish to be seen, rather than the reality of who they currently are. The point is that if the audience becomes aware that image and reality appear to be at odds with each other there is a ‘reality gap’, or words less polite. In terms of your identity, or the identity of your competitors, it is this deviation that represents a significant, and usually unaccounted for, profit or loss. To these ends this book gives you the knowledge that will help you to manage this commonly misunderstood and unfulfilled potential. In doing this it will show you how to create and then promote a set of deliberate messages that provide sufficient flexibility for your identity to grow as you intend. You will also learn to see clearly the links and integration that should bind your identity into your wider operational strategy, and why anything less than this is not only a waste of resources but an unnecessary step away from commercial success.

You are about to learn that there are identifiable laws regarding identity. These laws will give you, within the limits of your audience, a degree of control. You have a choice to match your identity to your objectives, and in doing so arrive more quickly and safely than if you leave these things to chance. In the process of achieving this aim you will realise that one of the most obvious benefits of a great identity is the opportunity it gives you to control how you are seen, and more than that, to be seen to be different. Your difference makes you visible and separates your personality from others. But difference alone is not enough. Your differential must attract, motivate and propel the instincts of those around you in accordance with your ambitions.

Deep Image or Deeply Meaningless?

Many organisations are content to believe that their logo, and little else, is their identity. Many individuals are also inclined to think it is their name (reputation) and nothing else that counts. However, both are shallow assumptions, for a logo or name, albeit often the most visible or verbalised elements of your identity, only signposts part of the whole truth. A compelling image is planned to succeed at all levels of communication: visual, verbal and behavioural. It is, in simple terms, what you ‘show, tell and do’. Only then does an organisation or individual communicate an identity that builds success and starts to justify the money and other resources you are spending on it. Be aware that an unsuitable identity can only mislead its audience and obstruct the wearer, and that a complete lack of any planned identity produces worse: the unfocused and, inevitably, the unmanageable. Either way, your existing expenditure will be funding forward or backward movement. Good or bad, your marketing communications cost money to produce.

The more complete identity that we are concerned with here will cover all aspects of visual, written and spoken communication. To avoid the effects of chance, application and commitment are required. Achieving a successful identity, and reaping the rewards of having one, is not for the faint-hearted or fuzzy-minded, and clarity together with depth of vision is essential before you apply creativity. Your aim is to design without manipulation being either obvious or unscrupulous. If an identity represents opportunity, it also signals limitations: if we are to know who we are, we must equally know who we are not. Understanding your purpose and beliefs, then managing them with flair and dexterity, can be a private matter for an individual –a lone dancer controls his or her own movements. But the larger the organisation, the more difficult it is to maintain the choreography: a firmer grip on direction is required and, hence, it is important to focus the identity so it can be purposefully communicated and used to your advantage. It will also need continuous review, for all identity must ride the opportunities and traps of fashion and technology. Nothing, especially not your identity, can afford to stand still.

You need belief, and if you believe in yourself you should also believe in your identity. In addition, an appearance favourable to your aims and beliefs needs to represent more than surface alone. Presentation should permeate deep enough to convince, and then a safety margin of depth beyond. Think of this as ‘deep image’, where the surface of the identity seen is also seen to keep its promise. We can all think of manufacturers who have used the past beliefs and reputation of a badge or marque on a new but inferior product. When the truth is realised, the customer (and staff) feel cheated. Once cheated, the customer’s memory of dissatisfaction persists for a considerable time, if not forever.

Identifying your core beliefs is no easy matter –or rather it is when you begin to realise that you arrive at your beliefs and values by first concentrating on your differential, a process we will return to later; but for many, unaware of exactly how best to proceed, the task seems daunting and it is a fact that most individuals and management teams fail before they start. If you ask the majority of organisations to describe their values, it is interesting to note that few can offer any clear or profitable answers. But you must, for if you don’t know, how can you expect your market to know? Simply insist on knowing who you are and where you are going, by setting values and desired outcomes. Failure to identify these beliefs produces an unpredictability which, in turn, will inevitably produce a shortfall in understanding and communication. This failure can easily germinate throughout service, product design, manufacture and personnel, finally impacting upon the entire venture and its level of profit or loss. It is not just customers who quickly discover the limitations of an identity, it is staff too.

it is a fact that business is far less logical than most of us presume

To become successful, a team must share the same standards and values. They will feel energised in the knowledge that their contribution to the whole, whether major or minor, knowingly fits within the aims and beliefs of the overall venture. As a result they will communicate these shared beliefs as one. In this respect, a smaller organisation, or cell, has an advantage over a larger one when it comes to punching beyond its weight. A vision is more easily shared and can therefore become so much more powerful within a smaller team.

Your beliefs need to communicate themselves to your audience without confusing them. As well as ensuring clarity, all good interpretation requires an allowance for others’ emotions. You need to communicate often with those who have no intention of communicating with you. So do you mislead, repel or attract them? If you attract or repel, will it be for the correct reasons? Do not answer these questions too hastily for there will be times when you will need to do both. Just one example of this is recruitment advertising, where you must filter potential applicants into action and inaction. You certainly do not want to attract the wrong applicants, and we all know the cost of getting this right or wrong. All this is about knowing what qualities and qualifications are necessary for your journey. It is simple to say, and less easy to do, but your belief and ambition should be detailed, known and, where appropriate, communicated throughout your organisation. Your identity should then perfectly shadow and emphasise these beliefs and ambitions if it is to contribute towards your aims, rather than get in the way.

Instincts and Emotions

How can we learn to understand the instincts and emotions of our audience? Selfish as it sounds, you might like to think about listening to yourself first. By doing so we can reflect upon our own instincts and emotions in order to understand those of others. We may prefer our personal self-image as someone unmoved by emotional reactions to such things as the appearance of people, products, advertisements or environments –for example dress sense or the depth of pile carpet in a reception area. We may pride ourselves that we have the ability or experience to ‘see through’ and decide for ourselves the salient information and truth that we seek. However, the reality is that we are all, some more than others, susceptible to our emotions and desires. And it is in this morass of emotion versus reason that an identity must first operate and succeed, the most emotive component of which is often pure visual appearance. That is why your appearance is so critically important.

People tend to believe what they see. We all share a significant tendency to judge contents by the container. Moreover, we do this with a careless urgency. For example, when your audience meets you for the first time, or encounters your publicity material, they will attempt to evaluate you as speedily as they can, so they may proceed –with or without you. You had better assume that any audience is impatient and has a limited attention span. Their desire will be to label you, and identify and file this image with some urgency. Of course, likewise, you will be evaluating them. These snap judgements will follow a mixture of conscious and unconscious reason and emotion. And they will be quick: a few seconds or a few minutes. While the clock is running, each increment of time will make first impressions recede into history. In other words, unless you start from the correct position of identity, your failure will proceed, and compound, at the rate of one second per second. History will become track record, and track record, eventually, will become the reality of your relationship.

appearances usually carry more weight than what you actually say, but don’t count on it

Any audience will also judge what you say against how you appear. So now it is no longer how you look, but also the content, style and delivery of what you say. It will also be compared to what you actually do. On these deceptively simple comparisons of show, tell and do they will be inclined to base their trust or distrust. As a frequent albeit general question, it is worth asking yourself whether your audience is likely to believe what you say when they compare it with what they can see. Consider that empires have been won and lost on the emotive impact of one picture or the turn of a just few words. A telling picture can dictate future events but, too easily dismissed by those who utter them, words can prove more telling than your actions. Realise, however, that audience reaction to what they see is likely to be the main influence over their first impressions. In other words, appearances usually carry more weight than what you actually say, but don’t count on it.

What people see is both rapidly and for the most part automatically processed by their minds. They may not be exercising any concentrated or conscious reason whilst they gaze in your direction, but they are assessing you at the speed of light. They, you, cannot help this process. This is why reviewing your operational strategy through the eye of your identity, as though you yourself were one of your own audience, can allow you to explore and verify all your operations, and in a manner that is impossible to replicate from any other more traditional standpoint. Instincts and emotions are powerful forces, for they have a tendency to sweep away everything in their path –and that includes carefully manicured cashflow projections and obsolete organisational structures. To succeed in building a relationship with an audience, that is your key audience, your likely customers, you must either confirm or overthrow their instincts. Your audience’s opinions are what will eventually confirm your business model’s success. If these opinions are in part guided through your identity, so it is a significant part of your overall operation, that should be dealt with far more seriously than is commonly the case. The more exceptionally you perform in this area, the more easily your margins will grow and, furthermore, in contrast to the more physical limitations of manufacturing and distribution, this particular opportunity for growth can be attained more economically. In other words, creating and then managing a productive identity is cheap when compared to the potential costs of product design and distribution. Furthermore, for many businesses with limited potential for achieving true market differential, an effective identity may be the fastest and least expensive way of gaining that differential or, for some, perhaps the only genuine way of gaining market awareness and sales.

effective identity is often the least expensive way to build differential and profit

Think of it this way: your audience wants to profit from your identity in terms of pleasure or information –they must appreciate a desirable difference or else they may dest...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 Emotions
• 2 Jargon
• 3 Integration
• 4 Objectives
• 5 Leadership
• 6 Differential
• 7 Show tell do
• 8 Intangibles
• 9 Firmwords
• 10 Reality
• 11 Style
• 12 Consistency
• 13 Presence
• 14 Time
• 15 Names
• 16 Status
• 17 Logos
• 18 Arrivals
• Index