All corporate, or what?

Comment by the Editor-in-Chief | Johannes Frederik Christensen

This article is part of a series of republications of selected texts by Olaf Leu and Bodo Rieger from the years 1987 to 2018. What was thought, written and advocated back then is worth re-reading - not out of nostalgia, but because it reflects questions that have not been resolved even today.

The information magazine "BluePrint" from wirDesign, Braunschweig/Berlin, posed some questions about corporate design in one issue and titled the whole thing with the questioning headline:

"Is corporate design dead?

At least it has almost disappeared from the headlines and discussions of the marketing and communications community. Content, storytelling, online strategies - these are some of the new heroes. Is the principle of corporate design just 'old school'? Is it still manageable at all given the diversity of media? And how does the multitude of new media change the principle? Is corporate design a restrictive straitjacket or a helpful guard rail? Does it create added value?"

Well, these are all perfectly legitimate questions. But I don't think corporate design is dead. After all, every communications agency, no matter how tiny or important, now has "corporate design" in its portfolio. Behind this is a disguised desire to not only take a small slice of the cake, but to profit from the whole thing. This is therefore more of an eloquent extension of the business idea than necessarily a communicatively intelligent concern. Especially as the term "corporate" sounds so beautiful, so all-encompassing, so significant. In the blink of an eye, it appears in the wide range of products on offer.

But because every creative company now boasts "corporate design", the industry is now falling into the next frenzy, which is sure to end in inflation, and is giving the "brand" absolute priority. Everything is now a brand. Everything becomes a brand. Or should and must become one.

This in turn inevitably leads to a new term, that of "brand identity".

It also sounds significant, although "corporate identity" actually means the same thing, but has long since been worn out.

Industry and business are very ambivalent about these things.

Take Deutsche Bank, for example: burdened with 7,000 lawsuits and a dismal share price, the shareholders and explicitly the Chairman of the Supervisory Board are now very critical of the handwritten slogan "Performance with passion", which is still in use: "Nobody can be satisfied with the external appearance and the development of the share price," said the Chairman of the Supervisory Board in May 2015.

Actually, the continued use of the slogan should be obsolete after this comment. But nothing of the sort has happened. I would have advised the gentlemen at Deutsche Bank to replace this slogan long ago. Because: better no slogan than this "counteracting" one.

Incidentally, I have always noticed them as present participants at various competition events involving annual reports, the polite and friendly delegates from Deutsche Bank's Investor Relations department. But I never experienced any visible effects of these visits. I never saw anything move. Deutsche Bank's annual report was always at the bottom of the rankings. My conclusion: this is a case of self-important resistance to any kind of change. There is no other explanation for the constant presence of the emissaries. Or perhaps they were just happy and used every opportunity to escape the castle and its "passionate performers". But that is just a guess.

In any case, I recently found the following slogan on the back window of a brand new Fiat Panda: "Better to take a Fiat to the beach than a Mercedes to work."

This is the exact opposite of "performance with passion". A caricature here, a smile there.

So let's follow the "brand" trend. Uli Mayer-Johannson, who was CEO of MetaDesign in Berlin for many years, has an interesting insight into this.

She writes: "In the meantime, everything is branded and at the same time it means that there is no clear

attribution may be more successful. The more we subsume under it, the more blurred it becomes,

The term seems to become more flickering and meaningless. And so the questions become

brand and the struggle for clarity will probably be with us for a long time."

Total Identity, the creative consultancy from Amsterdam that deals with identity issues, has collected thoughts on organizations of all kinds in their context, especially in relation to brands, in the book "Identity 2.0" published in 2008:

"'Brand thinking' is based on the view that brands are primarily conceived as an accumulation of values and channels of communication to the market that show the greatest possible congruence between the brand values and the value system of the target group. Brands symbolize the attitudes of consumers, the lifestyle they aspire to and the socio-economic class to which they belong. This is the central thesis of 'branding'.

This symbolic function of brands is becoming less important. The use of the brand as a symbol of the social position that an individual occupies is being undermined by a process of social equalization. Ironically, status brands such as Armani or Ray-Ban now only serve as symbols of social status in the economic lower classes. (...) The more we learn about the companies behind the brand, the more stale the content of the advertising for their brands often becomes, and the greater our irritation becomes in the face of the excesses of this advertising. It is therefore no surprise that those who expose the discrepancy between the behavior of the parents behind the brand and the brand itself are sometimes met with a considerable response from society. (...) After all, the individual's attitude towards brands and the companies behind them is also changing. Until the mid-1990s, there was hardly any interest in the company behind the brand. Today, consumers want to be able to identify with the companies whose products and services they buy, not with the abstract symbols and lifestyles conveyed in the advertising for these brands. (...) In contrast to 'brand thinking', where the aim is to differentiate oneself from other brands as quickly and as clearly as possible, to communicate this difference and thus gain the appreciation of consumers - the focus of identity thinking is to establish transparency in the way the company thinks and acts."

What are all the problems and various terms discussed here actually about? It's not just about possible "order sizes", here a corporate design, there an identity to be concretized. Nor is it about the short-term establishment of a "brand" - currently mainstream and to be found under "brand identity".

No, it is about nothing more and nothing less than the "old" goal of corporate identity.

However, helping to shape this requires a comprehensive and reoriented way of thinking.

And from both sides - from clients and contractors. As far as designers are concerned, this demand undoubtedly requires a fundamental reorientation of the relevant courses of study. And on the client side? It must be made clear that you cannot recruit the right agency with the necessary manpower through a pitch.

The renowned Swiss designer Peter Vetter comments on this in his book on "Design as a corporate strategy" under the heading "Designer casting or the bad habit of pitches":

"In recent years, the idea of pitches has been imported from the USA, and a pitch is now almost the standard form of tender in the industry. In a pitch, various eligible teams are invited to develop and present their proposed solutions - based on a defined briefing - for a project. The fees provided for this do not usually cover the expenses in any way, but are rather a kind of expense allowance. The dialog between client and contractor is usually reduced to a question and answer session or similar contacts. As a rule, the client will not and does not want to intervene in the process in the necessary depth during this initial phase. Instead, the aim of a pitch or a competition presentation is to obtain a broad and differentiated spectrum of possible solutions from various participants. Whether this is really the case remains to be seen. But it is certainly questionable whether such an approach leads to effective innovation."

In most cases, the results of pitches are comparable to reaching into a box of buttons. Because

a prior analysis, appropriate to the company, of existing and possibly

The fact that the agencies and bureaus that are commissioned never actually consider the factors to be redesigned. On the one hand, this is due to inadequate or non-existent insights into the business area to be worked on and, on the other hand, due to non-existent or inappropriate remuneration.

It goes without saying that pitch participants lured with "big contracts" therefore try to "pretty up" existing products, also in the hope that "a suitable button" might already be there.

However, if a corporate identity can be created at all, then this can only be achieved by

in five phases that must be worked out precisely and adhered to very consistently:

1. analysis, 2. hypothesis, 3. synthesis, 4. implementation and 5. ongoing processing.

However, this effort - both in terms of time and money - is only justified if both parts,

companies and designers are sure of themselves. This is a development process and not an actionist "Miss Beauty" competition like the one currently being held as a "pitch".

The current, resulting unease of creative professionals towards their clients is increasingly reflected in the comments of "writing", I call them "thinking" colleagues.

The following "insights" can be found in Uli Mayer-Johannsen's little brand book:

"Shigeo Haruyama, a famous Japanese doctor, puts it in a nutshell: 'Moderation determines whether something becomes a cure or a poison'. Clearly, moderation in what we do and how we do it is one of the great challenges of our time.

Business and politics have fallen in love with saving. The controllers on the one hand and the political admonishers on the other. The louder the analysts' call for quarterly figures becomes and the more board members allow themselves to be put under pressure by them, the more that from which companies draw strength and future capital is eroded. People as a 'resource' are stumbling under the weight of the tireless struggle for effectiveness and are increasingly questioning the meaning of life.

The soft factors, which still include people, brand and communication, are usually the first to be sacrificed for the sake of unlimited savings opportunities. Unfortunately, this is not without consequences. Brands and their painstakingly built-up brand capital have an extremely short 'half-life'. The admonitions of many communication and marketing managers all too often go unheeded and are dashed to pieces in the stock market storm of algorithms that eagerly demand more and more in less and less time. (...) Continuity has become a rare commodity in brand management. Increasing competitive pressure and a relentless battle for market share have led many companies to act in an increasingly short-term and tactical manner. They are tinkering with many small construction sites, trying to solve problems with technical gimmicks or quick PoS campaigns. All too often, however, the view of the big picture and the impact dimensions for the company and brand are lost. ...The frequent changes in marketing managers are also to blame for this development, leading to ever new, short-term strategies and advertising concepts."

Uli Mayer-Johannsen wrote to me in her letter accompanying the stamp book cited above:

"2014 was not the first year to prove that our ability to adapt has probably never been more in demand due to the rapid pace of change. A world in a maelstrom of change that constantly challenges and often overwhelms society and the economy. We seem to be losing sight of people. Efficiency and numbers seem to be the only economic parameters that make us happy. And so we are drifting towards an efficiency society that is detrimental to people and society in the long term.

Because despite all the change and all the fascinating technological achievements, people and their needs are increasingly falling by the wayside. Vision, ideas, identity, values and employee enthusiasm have been lost sight of."

Total Identity provides an essential approach to a new approach. In their book "Identity 2.0", which is well worth reading, under the heading 'Ethics. The years after 2000': Balances.

"Identity does not last forever, neither as a starting point for a company's communication nor as a way of gaining social acceptance. It is now becoming apparent that identity is in real danger of degenerating to the point where it is a construction without content, used merely as an empty shell for a sales gimmick. The public learns from its experiences with the brand and is dissatisfied when identity is formulated as a tool for image. At the same time, society is becoming increasingly anonymous. The welfare state is being dismantled and we have to rely more and more on ourselves. Media such as the Internet, UMTS and cell phones are accelerating the flow of information and have made personal relationships more superficial. Interpersonal relationships are becoming less the norm. We circle each other with all the means at our disposal. And yet we are seriously looking for a way to stay in touch with each other now that personal contact is no longer an automatic and structured process. This fragmentation of society will bring with it an ever-increasing need for dedicated forms of standardization: socially and culturally accepted standards that are necessary to give purposeful direction to an increasingly dynamic society. Through shared values, we create new ways of connecting that are not limited to our social relationships. This also applies to the economy. The values we determine to give direction to our lives (our integrity) are also required by business and government. Business is society and vice versa. And corporate responsibility and good corporate governance are becoming the ethical basis for action. (...)

Self-confident companies determine the topics on which they have an opinion themselves. And they determine the way in which they express them. They take a stand on events in society and on the market and thus claim a certain place on the playing field of target groups, shareholders and other stakeholders. These groups in turn know what they can expect from the company and find it confirmed in its behavior, communication and symbolism. These three elements of identity are inseparable and reinforce each other. The company presents itself clearly through these aspects and thus lays the foundation for trust and respect. Communication, behavior and symbolism take on new meaning on the basis of identity. The focus has shifted towards 'emotion', towards identification instead of posturing, towards commitment instead of profiling, towards developing a sustainable relationship instead of giving in to impulses.

This new approach requires a different attitude from companies. It calls for more empathy, which differs from the paternalistic, condescending and perception-oriented attitude commonly associated with companies."

I have selected all the quoted contributions for one reason only: Because they unequivocally call for the requirements of a new way of thinking. First and foremost, companies and their management staff are named and called upon. Only a few of them have recognized the signs of the communicative future - most of them need to rethink, now.

Because the current practice of expecting "creative proposals" in advance for pitches for annual reports or other projects must come to an end! After all, such proposals can at best come from the (unrewarded or only moderately rewarded) imagination of the participants - they never correspond to the corporate reality expected by the client.

The printed medium of the annual report in particular is a fundamental indicator of how consistently or inconsistently a company maintains and defends its "visual image" or leaves it to the free play of forces and the times.

It is therefore only to be hoped that we will return to seriousness and a sense of purpose in this area. Otherwise, the challenges that the communications industry will have to face more than ever in the future cannot be mastered.

EPILOG on "Everything corporate, or what?", 11.08.2025

Paul Rand, 1914-1996, is considered the "father of the modern design industry". He transformed graphic design from a largely art-based craft into the powerful corporate communication tool we know today. Responsible for brands such as IBM, NEXT, WESTINGHOUSE, UPS. He wrote an article in the late nineties in which he described much of what was considered design as "graffiti: ...a collage of confusion and chaos wavering between high tech and low artistic value, wrapped in a cloak of arrogance, squiggles, stick figures, blocks, boudoir colors, whatever special effects a computer has to offer". These decorations are obviously a convenient substitute for real ideas and real skill ..., what would "he" say today, 29 years later?