Brand identities that go beyond just high-gloss images

Large sums of money are invested in image campaigns to give a brand a unique, unmistakable image. But what happens when the image of a brand does not align with the real world?

The brand’s physical surface plays a special role here: It can render a corrective effect, suppress communication effects and tell its own brand’s history. As the day-to-day, public profile and point of contact for customers and non-customers alike, it is the branches, automated machine parks, vehicle fleets and the like that deliver the ultimate reality check for all high-gloss images in brand communication. Their appearance harbours both risks and rewards when establishing a stringent, non-contradictory brand message.
Our contribution presents a two-step standard design that delivers an impact analysis of physical brand surfaces. As part of this process we combine a quantitative population survey in a pre-post design, with a moderated online forum for recruited brand scouts.

Download publication (published in Planning and Analysis, edition 5, 2013)

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