Corporate powerhouses

The WA Business News branding survey featured a new component this year, with participants asked to list the state’s most successful corporate brands. That is, brands with recognition in commercial markets that may or may not be well known to consumers.

Multiplex, Wesfarmers and Woodside were the top three followed by BGC, Alinta, Austal Limited, Ernst and Young, Mirvac Fini, Argyle Diamonds, WA Newspapers Holdings Ltd, AFG, Bunnings and Rentsmart.

Although this focus was on corporate branding – as opposed to last year’s survey question regarding Western Australia’s oldest successful brands – six of this year’s top 10 also ranked in last year’s category.

These brands were Bunnings, WA Newspapers, Wesfarmers, Wood-side, Alinta and Multiplex.

To understand corporate brands and how they differ from emerging and recognised brands, WA Business News asked survey participants for their thoughts on the category and the challenges when branding for corporate organisations.

Company heads from Market-force, The Right Group, and 303 – John Driscoll, David Kemp and Jim Davies respectively – shared a similar view that, for a corporate brand to be successful, it had to do more than make a lot of money.

Interestingly, all three used Wesfarmers to illustrate a good corporate brand – but for different reasons.

Mr Driscoll said the issue with major corporate brands was that the brand identity was typically understood as the logo.

“That is what people think – but the logo is not the brand, it is what they do beyond that physical representation [backing it up with physical behaviour] which counts,” he said. “It is what lies behind that graphic representation that counts [how the organisation behaves].

“Wesfarmers is a good example. The Wesfarmers brand is highly regarded because of how it behaves as a corporate identity. It doesn’t exist just in the business world but also as a major player in the community sector.

“For example, Wesfarmers’ art is a strong part of the overall Wesfarmers brand.

“How a company behaves and its corporate governance are the issues that will give it its corporate identity and position its brand in the market.”

Mr Driscoll said organisations had to be careful that the brand also reinforced and took into account the values of its stakeholders.

“The greater weighting a company put towards its corporate brand, the stronger its success will be,” he said.

“Therefore, how an organisation behaves, its corporate identity has to reflect its brand for it to be successful.”

The Right Group’s managing director, David Kemp, echoed Mr Driscoll’s view that the most successful corporate brands were considered the cream of the crop because they coupled strong economic activity with good corporate governance and citizenship.

“The challenge for corporate branding is ensuring three key components,” Mr Kemp said.

“These being strong business fundamentals, clarity of messages, and market leadership.

“Corporate organisations have to be consistent and predictable.”

Mr Kemp said Wesfarmers was a financial powerhouse and a well-managed business.

“The Wesfarmers board make sure their subsidiaries are managed along the same guidelines,” he said.

“They are good corporate citizens and show good market leadership.

“People like to do business with good businesses.”

But 303 managing director, Jim Davies, took a more philosophical point of view when assessing corporate branding, saying that corporate brands are usually very well known but their challenge is adding deeper and better understanding to their organisation.

“This does not necessarily mean more exposure, but communicating with stakeholders and making them understand,” Mr Davies said.

“Corporate branding is about an organisation assessing and looking forward at where it needs to head.

“The challenge is articulating the brand and the journey it is on.”

Mr Davies said ANZ was an organisation, which, at the moment, was doing a good job in trying to demonstrate where it was going.

Mr Davies said the names dominating the corporate brand top 10 would not change because of the big spend budgets.

“Until companies and agencies start treating brand separately to advertising and marketing you will never make progress [in quality or accurate representation of who is doing brand well],” he said.

“People have a lot to learn about brand and the fact that it is not about advertising campaigns.”

Mr Davies said that most brands were not very well developed because branding experts were only trying to sell advertising.

“If you are going to talk it up, you have to back it up,” he said.