FROM BRAND IDENTITY TO BRAND PLATFORM
Agence Puck
24 March 2022
Dozens of companies tend to reduce brand identity to a logo. Yet this subject has been extensively documented by eminent specialists such as Jean Noël Kapferer and Marie Claude Sicard. Brand positioning is the place, or the niche as Al Ries – the inventor of the concept – puts it, that you want to occupy in the customer's mind. Alongside this, brand identity is the set of attributes that will enable the brand to occupy this specific, chosen place in the buyer's mind.
Working on brand identity is a fundamental and specific role in a communication agency. It lies at the heart of defining the brand, an essential communication tool, but it calls on a strategic expertise that takes years of experience to master, whether in a communication agency or even on the advertiser's side when complex brand launches or brand architectures have to be managed.
So brand identity feeds on codes, images, values, messages and so on that enable it to stand out and establish itself on the market. The logo is part of this, of course.
These elements must therefore be brought together so that the company and its stakeholders can share these attributes and carry the brand's positioning. This is where the brand platform comes in. It can take very different forms.
Vision, mission, ambitions and values, which will feed a positioning made up of target, competition and promise, as defined by Al Ries.
J.N. Kapferer's prism is also particularly interesting when you want to define a brand's identity precisely at its creation. It attributes almost human components to the brand: physique, personality, culture, relationship, reflection and mentalisation (self-image).
One example is the Lacoste brand prism. It shows that brand identity goes far beyond the logotype or name: it feeds the brand's world, creates a territory and helps it establish its positioning on its market.
