Your Corporate Image

Corporate Images just arent reserved for big businesses like McDonalds; corporate image is just as important for the little guy. If you look at a computer repair company like Geek Squad, you’ll notice they have their FBI-esque uniforms, their “special agent” badges and their VW Bug vehicles (known as “Geekmobiles”) to get them around as part of their corporate iamge. You’ll notice they consistently use the colors black and white with the Geek Squad logo. Even Geek Squads phone recordings have James Bond music running in the background.

I am not telling you to dress up and run around town playing secret agent, but there are rules to follow to create and maintain a great corporate image.

Choose some colors and use them consistently

Geek Squads are black, white and orange. Technibbles are green are white with some dashes of dark red. Whatever your colors are, they should be used consistently on everything you have that contains color such as your uniform, business cards, website, brochures, outdoor signage and any other forms of advertising. Your colors should always remain exactly the same because a few shades difference can throw the whole image right off track. You wont catch McDonalds’ logo ever changing color – you always know exactly what shade of yellow and red they use.

Use a specific font on all your material

The font that you use on your materials can be almost as strong as your logo itself. If I used the McDonalds McCafe font but didn’t actually spell McCafe with it, you’ll know that it is still the McCafe font. You don’t need to create your own font like they did, I’m just demonstrating that people also associate the font with your business. For my own publications (including Technibble), I like to use Arial because it is easy to read in all font sizes. Some people also like to use Times New Roman, but I find it tends to become hard to read when it gets small.
Whatever font you use, use it consistently on all of your material because it will eventually become associated with your brand.

Your logo

Your logo is the most important part of your corporate image. It should use your colors mentioned earlier and it should be simple and uncomplicated.
I find a great way to help you determine whether your logo is simple and uncompliated it to silhouette it:

This will also make sure that your logo is always readable when you are printing in black and white.

Tell people why your business is different with a good slogan

We did a big writeup on this last year in our article “What makes your business different?“. Some of the big businesses have created great slogans for their companies to stand out from the rest. For example:

Hungry Jacks (Australias Burger King) has the slogan “The Burgers are Better at Hungry Jacks” letting you know their burgers are better than their competitors (ie. McDonalds).

Coke used to use “It’s the Real Thing” implying that Pepsi isn’t the real thing? or inferior in some way.

For your own slogan, you may have a “no fix no fee” rule so that would make a great slogan. Your business might be the longest established PC Store in your town, the largest or the friendliest, so you could easily use any of those. Anything to make your business different.

There is alot we can learn from the big boys about corporate image since most of them have mastered it. Look at businesses that are leaders of their industry and take note of their branding.