Many organizations are confused by the difference between the two critical concepts of strategy and design when comparing brand identity vs visual identity. To address the confusion, organizations are often attracted to the idea of commissioning a new logo to help address what they perceive to be a broken market position.
This breakdown can create confusion in the minds of marketing executives, as they must now consider where the strategic definition ends, and the visual expression begins.
How to Create the Right Identity System
This is the operational framework to accurately define, scope, and govern the appropriate level of identity system for your organization.
The Difference Between the System and the Surface
The failure of most corporate rebranding operations is due to the leadership team hiring the wrong deliverables for their specific marketing issue. Either they order a visual identity system when their issue is really about their market position, or they write brand strategy documents for a few months when their regional sales force needs centralized design templates.
The brand identity hierarchy is generally understood to be the entire organizational system, whereas the visual identity is merely the visual component of that system. Understanding the distinctions between these two aspects of branding will provide marketers with the ability to create more efficient ways to allocate marketing budgets and direct specific deliverables to appropriate internal teams.
In addition, understanding the distinctions will lead to a change in how an organization measures agency success evaluations within the context of the brand. Many organizations see brand guidelines as visual-only documents. These organizations ignore the need for the strategic rules, verbal rules, and behavioural rules that are required to maintain an aligned workforce.
Therefore, the objective of defining a brand is not just to define the terms, but also to use the defined terms as a diagnostic tool. If a company targets prospects who are not the right fit, then the problem is one of positioning, and a new colour scheme will not solve the issue. Your company may have a very polished-looking website; however, if your sales decks appear disorganized, it needs to implement an effective governance process instead of creating more strategies that lead to confusion.
Brand Identity vs Visual Identity: The Overarching System
Brand identity is a system that includes a definition of a company – what its vision is, what it stands for, how it interacts, and how it acts. The definition of the brand identity is purposeful (internal). Brand identity establishes the main narrative that comprises the core narrative of the business.
This cloud of confidence or brand identity sets the expectation (promise) for the purchasers, and establishes the tone of voice for the delivery of that promise. Brand identity creates a foundation (logic) for a business. Businesses must create a target audience, define their competitive experience, establish their core values and then they can begin design work on the physical manifestation of those elements (visual identity system).
Advanced Brand Identity
As employees become experienced and professionals in their roles, the brand identity transcends the philosophy and becomes applicable. It provides detailed and usable policies to every business unit (business line) in the business.
For example, it tells the customer service team and product development team what tone to use when interacting with customers or developing new features. Therefore, if a visual asset is developed without a structural foundation, it will not provide any meaningful context, but it may have an appearance of being professional.
Visual Identity Basics
As stated above, visual identity is the design application (look and feel) of your brand identity. It communicates the higher level of strategic meaning into tangible form through physical or digital mediums.
The design of visual identity includes logos, color systems, typographical hierarchy, image rules, icons, and layout grids. Visual identity identifies how, throughout a variety of different environments, the market will physically see the company. A logo is only 1/1000th of a visual identity system!
A complete visual identity gives the technical information for the application of design at scale in a consistent manner. It will consist of responsive logo marks to scale down for mobile devices, colour tokens for software interfaces, and motion principles for video assets.
In order for visual identity to work effectively, it needs to be completely aligned with a strategic foundation. A very good example of how to demonstrate the full potential of a mature visual identity was McDonald's use of a campaign in 2020 that relied on typography and colour combinations for recognition of the brand, with no icons, wording, or images of the food.
Understanding Brand Identity vs Visual Identity Deliverables
Distinguishing scope and deliverables is important when evaluating brand identity vs visual identity for an agency's work and setting expectations internally. Having a clear matrix that helps marketing buyers distinguish between strategic requirements and design outputs will help when identifying how to effectively work with agency partners in the area of branding.
The following breakdown illustrates the main differences between these two levels in terms of scope and deliverables:
Core Questions
Brand Identity: Who am I? Why do you exist?
Visual Identity: How do I look? How do I maintain consistency?
Key Deliverables
Brand Identity: Positioning statement, message architecture, voice, tone, core values.
Visual Identity: Logo files, colour codes, typography files, UI kits, layout guidelines.
Business Problems Addressed
Brand Identity: Unique selling proposition, consistency in messaging, unclear audience focus.
Visual Identity: Outdated or unprofessional appearance, lack of consistency in formatting and overall market presence, low recognition.
Primary Owners
Brand Identity: Founder(s), executive leadership, brand strategists.
Visual Identity: Design teams, creative directors, and/or external design agencies.
Common Failure Mode
Brand Identity: Development of a strategy too generic to inform daily operational decisions.
Visual Identity: Assets look good, but do not accurately reflect the core positioning.
Symptoms of a Weak Identity
Visual identity breakdowns become very apparent and quickly visible as soon as your visual identity breaks down. You see that as someone who is struggling to keep up with consistency with the corporate color and therefore begins to use various shades of the corporate colour for his/her marketing team.
The logo is frequently stretched by sales representatives when designing their presentation decks, and most social media graphics utilize typography that is not aligned with the website; these design flaws are quite apparent. Design flaws are symptoms of a lack of technical documents and/or poor availability of branded assets.
If an employee cannot easily find the correct high-quality logo, they will likely download an incorrect version from a search engine. Hiring an identity visual agency to fix your branding issues when dealing with brand identity vs visual identity is a waste of money if you're just looking for a standardization project.
What you require are defined color codes, clearly defined typography hierarchies, and very specific rules about how to align the various elements on the page. Writing an entirely new mission statement will not solve any typography issue.
Identifying Structural Issues
When a brand's identity failure is behavioral or verbal, it is a structural issue. That is, an organization may have the same color palette throughout all departments, but each department conveys the core message of the product in a different manner.
The sales department may sell the customer on a product that the product department cannot deliver. The marketing department may publish materials that are not at all related to the actual customer experience. These are structural issues. Refreshing visual identity can only cover the problem of structural issues temporarily; correcting structural issues will require the work of a brand strategy.
A brand strategy involves re-evaluating your position within your market, interviewing customers, auditing your message and defining the core value proposition for your business. Fixing structural issues will take much more time, money and effort than merely replacing your old logo with a new one. A typical reason that rebranding does not provide a return on investment is the desire for a brand identity project to resolve an identity crisis.
B2B Software Brand Identity
A business-to-business (B2B) software organisation utilises their brand identity differently than other types of businesses. The brand is typically not experienced through television and billboard advertisements. Instead, in a B2B environment, the brand is experienced through the software interface, technical documentation and sales process.
In the case of a SaaS company, the product itself is typically the primary brand touchpoint. Therefore, when determining the visual identity to use for creating a visual representation of the brand, the visual identity should reflect, within the application, the type of company it is.
For example, if the strategic brand identity states that the company is "technically rigorous and fully transparent", then the visual identity created for the visual representation should reflect that within the application. In this case, the visual representation created must use colours that are highly contrasting and accessible; layouts of information within the application are dense (but organised), and data visualisations are designed for clarity over aesthetic decoration.
The verbal identity of the organisation must also be reflected in their technical documentation. If an organisation is claiming to be transparent and helpful to its customers, their onboarding documentation must be free of confusing and dense corporate language.
Throughout every customer interaction, including every error message, every tooltip and every support article, there must be a consistent representation of the organisation's core brand identity. If the organisation's UI visual elements are consistent, but their language is confusing, this creates a break in the overall brand experience.
Brand Identity vs Visual Identity in B2B Sales
In a B2B buying cycle, it is common for there to be multiple stakeholders involved, which means that a consistent identity within the entire go-to-market motion is necessary. If a potential customer interacts with a very well-designed company website, but the follow-up is a very poorly designed presentation and includes messaging that is out of date, trust has been lost immediately.
When navigating brand identity vs visual identity, your visual identity should include components that allow for these variations in sales environments. The visual identity should include templates for presentations, case studies and proposals that can be easily used by non-designers.
Your company’s brand identity should provide a framework for clear, consistent messaging so that all sales representatives communicate the same value proposition to your customers. By having a strategic sales process that aligns with the corporate visual design, your company will create an image of stability, organization and reliability.
Expanding Your Brand Image and Reputation
Modern marketing education lacks understanding in regard to the distinction between what a corporation can control vs. what an audience will decide. Therefore, while brand identity and visual identity represent the internal tools a corporation uses to build their brand and maintain control over its message, these two components are different from brand image and brand reputation.
The difference between brand image and brand reputation is the market reality of how audiences perceive your company's products and services today (brand image) vs. how you want the audience to perceive your company (brand reputation). Brand image represents the current perception of your audience regarding the company.
Your audience will associate your company's visual identity and your brand identity as "premium" and "innovative" or "cheap" and "old-fashioned"; however, if there are issues with your product (i.e., crashing), the audience's perception will be that the company is "unreliable" and "overpriced."
To accurately assess the gap between the intended brand identity and brand image, marketing teams must conduct qualitative research, customer interviews and market surveys. Publishing new brand guidelines will not create or force an audience to accept a new brand image.
The Total Sum of Customer Experiences
Through the total sum of customer experiences, a brand's reputation is not created overnight. It does not come from a single promotion or recent catalogue launch but, rather, through the accumulation of market feedback over a long period of time.
Although brand image can change very quickly due to a single ad campaign or launch, a brand's reputation is built over time.
Many companies that suffer from a poor reputation tend to attempt to escape their negative reputation by completely altering their brand identity/logo and creating a new look. This almost always fails.
Companies will launch new logos or a new visual framework/campaign in hopes that these changes will erase the past; however, a new logo does not eliminate a history of providing poor customer service and a new framework of messaging will not correct a defective product and make it functional.
As such, prior to creating a new brand identity for your company, an executive must first conduct an honest assessment of whether the company wants to convey a new reality or simply cover up the old reality.
To create a successful brand, the identity creation process should be designed to enhance a company's existing truth about their business and the product/service that they provide.
How to Set Up and Run Your Identity System
Creating a brand identity system is only the first step in the creation of a successful brand. The true challenge is to successfully operate your new brand identity within your company as it continues to grow. In today's market, there is a growing trend for branding being treated as part of the internal operating system vs. being simply a creative output.
Assess the Foundation of the Brand
The initial step to developing a new brand identity begins with the assessment of the existing brand, the assessment of target audiences, the assessment of public perception of the brand and the assessment of the current branding assets. The objective is to clearly identify all the areas where the existing branding system was most ineffective and/or unsuccessful.
A corporation's assets already performing successfully means it will not be replaced by an outside agency. Once a company has received the results of its diagnostic review, it has initiated the process of establishing its foundational strategy.
That strategy is comprised of four (4) components: the purpose of the business; audience segments; positioning statement; competitive frame. The four components serve as the basis for all decisions made after the foundational strategy is established. Any design or messaging elements that do not support this strategic foundation are immediately eliminated.
After a company has established its foundational strategy, the design team will establish its verbal identity and visual identity.
The verbal identity describes the voice, hierarchy of messaging and the language that is used in the messaging; it includes examples of language that is preferable and language that is strictly prohibited; this enables copywriters in London and social media managers in Tokyo to communicate in the same voice for the same company.
The visual identity is created to match the verbal identity. Designers create the logo system, colour tokens and typography rules.
Designers must create these systems for practical application and establish accessibility guidelines for colour contrast to ensure that users with visual impairments can read the website. Designers must establish localisation guidelines for how typography may shift when translated into a language with longer word lengths.
Brand Rules and Asset Management
The most important aspect of a modern brand is its governance. A governance framework is the backbone of a modern brand's management. Without an effective governance framework, any brand will be overwhelmed with incomplete and inaccurate information in months. A brand book in the form of a PDF should no longer be used to manage a brand in a multi-channel organisation.
Many organizations are currently implementing centralized digital asset management systems to properly manage the divide between brand identity vs visual identity. According to data from Frontify, corporations such as Bosch had many issues with confusing brand identity, having 17 different published brand guidelines and 60 different versions of their home icon before finally consolidating their visual identity management into one cohesive visual structure.
To provide the tools necessary for proper governance of visual branding assets, organizations should implement a central asset library, dynamic digital guidelines, and defined approval workflows. Furthermore, organizations should provide locked templates to allow local teams to make text changes only, resulting in no opportunity for non-designers to make bad visual decisions.
Establishing Metrics for System Usage and Quality
In addition to developing a central visual identity management system, companies should establish metrics for system usage and quality. Many companies (often marketing) claim without evidence that changing the corporate visual identity will automatically increase revenue, build customer loyalty, or increase conversion rates.
Little to no independent, validated data exists linking new visual identities to these outcomes. The new color palette will not create sales pipeline. Therefore, rather than attempting to find false revenue metrics, all teams should focus on utilizing operational indicator metrics.
Tracking Internal Metrics
To successfully track the success of all identity rollouts, companies should monitor internal metrics first.
When companies use a centralized brand management platform, administrators have the ability to track the total number of divisions using the central asset library for their respective brands. Companies can also measure the number of inconsistent templates that have been successfully removed from the company's corporate network.
Likewise, marketing leaders should measure their respective approval cycle times with the use of a functional identity system.
The ability to produce marketing-related assets in a shorter period of time will be significantly improved when local brand teams have clearly defined templates and unambiguous creative guidelines. The number of incorrectly used logos in high-priority channels such as partner websites or social media channels should also be tracked and measured.
Measuring External Communication
When measuring the effectiveness of communication externally, marketers should be focused on how quickly the brand is being recognized, and whether or not target audiences are accurately interpreting the new communication structure. Each of these measurements can also be quantified and evaluated objectively.
Although consistent visual design will increase the speed of recognition for your brand, it is important to remember that mere recognition does not contribute to trust, preference, or loyalty. Although a consumer may recognize your brand's logo instantly, it does not mean that consumer will choose to purchase your products or services over your competitors'; thus, metrics related to identity serve as diagnostic indicators for the efficiency of an organization's communications.
These metrics indicate whether or not the target audience has received and seen the communications that your organization intended to communicate to them; however, they do not provide guarantees that the target audience will be inclined to engage with your brand subsequent to those engagements.
Aligning Budgets with Operational Needs
When evaluating the alignment of budgets with the operational needs of the company, stop purchasing logo packages when the problem lies with positioning of your corporate brand, and stop continually retyping your strategies when the issue continues to be a lack of centralized design resources.
Find out where your organization is failing and identify the exact level of diagnostic detail needed, and then approach your brand from a process perspective and treat your corporate brand as an operating system rather than an isolated art project.