One essential element of the branding process is documenting your branding elements to assure that people – employees and suppliers – adhere to the brand standards you have developed. Today I’ll introduce you to a couple of brand identity manuals that are comprehensive and well organized.

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We encouraged clients to do corporate identity campaigns. It was good for them and for the agency – we got to place these ads in Fortune, Forbes and Business Week, so we got agency recognition as well as pretty large commissions.

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Certainly there’s quite a bit of subjective opinion being expressed when it comes to selecting a logo for your brand. Branding is more than designing a logo, but the logo is an important branding element, so it should be evaluated with the same thoroughness as the brand name itself.

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Continuing with stakeholder profiles and info that’s of value in developing a brand – and therefore needs to be documented in your Brand Profile – I’ll address employees today.

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In describing stakeholders for your brand platform, prospects and customers are usually considered the most important groups. For products, this is a fairly easy task (unless you’re launching a new technology with lots of potential applications) because products are usually developed with a customer profile in mind

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The core of your brand is the BIG IDEA that is the core of your business. Find the core, find the brand.

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Defining and prioritizing your company’s stakeholders is an important element of the brand platform. You want to find those characteristics for which the brand can influence thinking and behavior.

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The role of branding and the priorities given to branding should be spelled out in a manifesto that will become a plank in the corporate branding platform.

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In addition to a mission statement, a vision statement, a values statement and a positioning statement, a realistic knowlwdge of the company culture is important for a brand if it is to have credibility and loyalty.

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The mission statement, the vision statement, the values statement, the positioning statement are all important to defining a brand. They should each be integrated into your brand platform to guide your brand’s development in alignment with the corporate strategic plan.

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