A Comparison of the Perceptions of Clients and Design Consultants toward Corporate Identity Programs

• Main Authors: CHANG, Dae Ryun, CHANG, Don Ryun, Lee, Kwon Soo
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 1996
• Subjects: Corporate identity; Implementation; Clients; Designers; Korea; Advertising and Promotion Management; Marketing
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/2926; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/lkcsb_research/article/3925/viewcontent/mktg95045.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Although much attention has been given to the importance of developing and using corporate and brand identity programs (from hereon essentially combined and referred to as CI), in the business literature in contrast academic treatment is less abundant and in particular there is little research on their actual implementation. While the motivation for the emergence of CI is easily understood, what is not clear is how effective these programs are after implementation. In this paper we focus on two communities responsible for the creation and implementation of identity programs, the clients and the designers. Even within client corporations of CI programs confusion still remains over what these programs are and why they are needed (Marketing 1988). This problem will be more accentuated in countries like Korea because identity programs have had a very short history. One of the major sources for this confusion may be the wide scope of CI. A well known guru of CI, Wally Olins argues that CI encompasses not only marketing but also behavior, communications, strategy, structure, advertising, and public relations. In that context different people in different parts of the organization may be looking at limited aspects of CI. We propose in this paper that these perceptual barriers inhibit the effectiveness of the CI implementation. Do the clients and design consultants agree on what makes a good CI program? This is what we aim to determine in this study.