How to cultivate your image through
corporate branding and corporate identity

Corporate branding and corporate identity reflects what you stand for as a business, your mission and who you serve. CEOs and leaders across the corporate world have recognised the enormous value of strong corporate branding. As a result, it’s never been more important to have a strong brand identity that gives you a competitive advantage over your rivals.

Corporate branding has to uphold and reflect the company’s belief system, culture, principles, future ambitions or visionary goals. Customers who connect with the brand values are more likely to develop loyalty and trust.

With any brand, consistency is key – as it will ensure your brand is recognised and remembered. A successful corporate brand transcends what many people think of as branding – it is a tool to stand out from the crowd, to be distinctive and authentic, and to create a powerful, sometimes unconscious, bond with customers.

Let’s look at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, for example. Diadem’s strategy was to think beyond the brief and holistically understand how to bring the brand to life – in every way possible.

CBA launched its first significant logo rebrand in 2020. The brand update came as a result of working to put the needs of its customers front and centre. The iconic yellow diamond is only CBA’s fourth distinct logo in its 110-year history.

In practice this saw CBA replace its black and yellow logo for all-yellow diamond logo – a move its marketing executives hoped would signal a sense of optimism. But this raised a question. How do you actually translate a brand designed for print and digital outputs into the built environment?

Their philosophy of a ‘brighter tomorrow’ provided Diadem with a great base to interpret their corporate brand vision and story.

The solution? Diadem elevated the logo up high, like a beacon of light and kept the use of colour only in the logo, which all tapped into a ‘brighter tomorrow’ brand story.

Additionally, another important factor to CBA was sustainability. Working with CBA, Diadem was able to utilise previous signage and materials to install this brand refresh – ultimately rebranding smarter and helping to achieve a brighter, better future.

The future of how we use and need banking is unclear, and as a result, many brands are currently in experiential mode to understand, plan and form what’s next for the commercial banking world. We know that banks will always be required, so planning how they will look and service our needs now and into the future is crucial to the next steps of banking.

Even with all the shifts in the industry, and the increased need for digital access, it’s unlikely that bricks-and-mortar banks will go away anytime soon. Visual cut through and offering a user-friendly experience to encourage customers to visit the physical branch has never been more important.

To be successful, banks will need to put customer experience at the centre of every strategy.

Diadem’s proactive approach to sustainability, coupled with our technical expertise, works to translate the client’s vision into the built environment and in the digital world, helping to connect people with place.