subject: Corporate Identity And Brand Identity Explained [print this page] Corporate identity and brand identity are not the same thing yet they are often misunderstood by individuals and businesses. The difference between the two has everything to do with what is being marketed.
Corporate identity is the identity of a corporate organisation or in other words a large business with more demanding marketing needs than a smaller business. The corporate identity of a business includes everything from the company logo to the company ethos. An identity is the way something is perceived by others and so to make this perception more appealing corporate organisations invest money into their corporate image.
Brand identity is the identity of a product that is being sold or a service that is being provided. Such a product or service could be sold or provided by a company with a different name to the product that is being sold or the service that is being provided. Many corporate organisations also sell more than one product and each product can have a different brand identity. An example of this would be a company that sold a range of cheap shampoos as well as a range of environmentally friendly shampoos with a completely different brand identity for each range.
The confusion between what makes a corporate identity or what makes a brand identity arises because many businesses choose to brand their own company name, in other words the company is the brand. A good example of this is The Coca Cola Company that sells Coca Cola. The Coca Cola Company also sells other brands of fizzy drinks but there are many corporate organisations that do not use their name to sell a product or service. These companies instead create brands that are to be sold as a product or provided as a service.
To summarise the difference between corporate identity and brand identity is that corporate identity is the identity of a large business where as brand identity is the identity of a product that is being sold or service that is being provided. A company may brand its own service that it provides or it may brand a service with a completely different name.
