The use of CI strategy by enterprises can be traced back to the early 20th century and before the First World War. AEG electric appliance company in Germany and Olivetti company in Italy are pioneers of CI application. The former adopted the enterprise identification symbols (mainly trademarks) designed by Peter Bohens for the first time in its electrical products, forming a unique visual unity; Oliveti Company pays attention to the novel design of goods and sales space and the design of company logo, and is considered as the first enterprise to implement a unified visual identification system. It can be seen that the embryonic form of CI strategy originated from the trademark design of enterprises. CI strategy is the abbreviation of corporate image. Literally, Corporate means "enterprise", "association" and "organization", and Identity has many meanings such as "identity", "individuality" and "unity". Therefore, CI strategy is generally translated as "the unity of corporate image", "corporate identity" or "corporate image".
CI strategy consists of three subsystems: mental identity; Behavior identification; Visual Identity (visual identity). If the enterprise is personified, the three subsystems of CI strategy can be vividly compared to the "thought", "behavior" and "appearance" of the enterprise.
1, spiritual identity (MI)
Enterprise spirit, values, sense of mission, basic principles of activities, etc. In a sense, the enterprise concept is not only the internal motive force of enterprise development, but also the wisdom crystallization of enterprise growth and development, so MI is the core and soul of CI strategy.
2. Behavior recognition
Under the guidance of enterprise concept, the behavior situation of all aspects of enterprise production and operation activities involves two levels: internal and external.
3. Visual recognition (VI)
Visual recognition is the most intuitive and clear part of CI strategy. VI is a systematic and standardized design of all visible elements of an enterprise, and then through specific media, let the public know the enterprise at the fastest speed and let the public identify with the corporate image. Virtual instrument consists of three parts: basic system design, application system design and auxiliary system design. 1, American visual CI
In the 1940s, CI was formally born in the world after the original design, company logo and standard words dedicated to design were comprehensively sorted out and revised by Italian company Olivetti. 195 1 year, the logo designed by William Gordon was widely used by CBS in various media, which had a great impact on society. 1956, IBM, the American international business machine company, fully applied CI strategy. President Thomas thomas jr Jr. said: "People have their own personality, their own world outlook, and their own behavior patterns are formed because of education and hobbies, which reflect everyone's personality. If the company is measured by the same thinking, should the company have a unified' personality'? " ; 196 1, Minnesota mining manufacturing company changed its trademark and corporate logo to "3M company" (1978 changed it to "3m"); The introduction of CI strategy in Chrysler helped its market share increase by 18%. China Eastern Airlines, which was on the verge of bankruptcy, miraculously came back to life because of the introduction of CI strategy. 1970, the famous coca-cola company also hired the famous designer Lowe to redesign the company's trademark and logo, forming a "red ribbon" trademark with strong visual impact and favored by consumers.
A striking feature of "American CI strategy" is "visual design", which mainly uses the visual elements of corporate image as a tool to communicate corporate ideas and corporate culture. In concrete operation, based on the existing business philosophy, business policy and business strategy of the enterprise, all visual elements of the corporate image, such as corporate logo, standard words, standard colors, packaging, advertising, clothing, vehicles, buildings, etc., are designed in a highly rigorous and standardized system, so as to achieve the purpose of strengthening the corporate image. The operation idea of this "American CI strategy" is closely related to the humanistic and natural background such as American automobile culture, immigrant culture and vast territory.
2. Japanese cultural words
In 1960s and 1970s, CI strategy was introduced into Japan. Japan's "National Income Multiplication Plan" was an unprecedented success in the 1960s, which made Japan rapidly enter a period of rapid economic growth. After entering the 1970s, Japan's economy developed vigorously, and CI strategy spread and popularized rapidly in Japan. 197 1 year, dai-ichi kangyo bank took the merger as an opportunity to introduce CI strategy, followed by Mazda, Shuishui Chemical Industry Company, Lingbei Company, and later Isetan Department Store, Overseas Dairy Company, Lily Liquor Company, Minolta Company, MIZENO Company and Huageer. In 1970s, Japanese CI strategy was influenced by "American CI strategy", and its implementation focused on the design of visual elements of corporate image.
Since 1980s, Japanese CI strategy has entered a stage of in-depth development and innovation. On the one hand, CI strategy is rapidly popularized, and as many as 129 enterprises have introduced CI strategy from 1985. Many enterprises regard the introduction of CI strategy as an important means to enhance their corporate image and enhance their competitiveness. On the other hand, Japanese business circles, design circles and public relations circles, on the basis of "American CI strategy", have gradually stepped out of the mode of pure imitation and copying. On the basis of "American CI strategy", they added the contents of corporate culture and corporate philosophy, and formed a CI strategic model with corporate philosophy and corporate culture as the core. In concrete operation, it not only inherits the rigorous visual design thinking of "American CI strategy", but also introduces CI strategy into the enterprise as an activity to re-recognize and sort out the enterprise concept and culture, and adds behavior recognition and spiritual identity to CI, which greatly enriches the connotation of CI strategy and makes CI strategy develop to a new height.
3. China brought CI.
In the early 1980s, with the development of China's market economy and the strengthening of enterprises' awareness of participating in international competition, enterprises began to attach importance to logo design. The earliest time was 1980, when Bank of China Hongkong Branch and 12 Chinese banks launched a computerized joint venture, and started the work of designing bank objectives.
1988, Guangdong Dongguan Yuangang Health Beverage Factory, the predecessor of Guangdong Sun God Group, introduced CI strategy. After just a few years' efforts, a "MasterCard" brand biological health oral liquid that has been put on the market since the early 1980s has become a hot-selling product in health drinks, and the enterprise itself has changed from a small-scale joint-stock township enterprise to a well-known large enterprise group. The output value increased from 5.2 million yuan in 1988 to more than 40 million yuan in 1990, and rose rapidly to 800 million yuan in 199 1 year, and miraculously exceeded 65,438 billion yuan in 1993. The use of CI strategy has made Sun God make a qualitative leap. After entering the 1990s, CI strategy has been further promoted and developed. For example, Wahaha Group, Chunlan Group, Haier Group, Shanghai Petrochemical, Yizheng Chemical Fiber and Beijing Landao Building. A large number of enterprises have introduced CI strategy. The demonstration effect of enterprises that take the lead in introducing CI strategy makes more and more enterprises join the ranks of investing in CI strategy.
However, judging from the development track of Ci in China, it basically belongs to "take-ism". Although there are professional organizations specializing in CI design and even research in China, they are also trying to explore Chinese CI. However, due to the immature market economy system and limited human and financial resources, they have to dabble in it, and it is difficult to achieve a positive result. The typical characteristics of CI in China are mainly manifested in two aspects: first, the business community has a superficial understanding of VI, which is a typical "buy gifts and return pearls", while the design community also loves what it likes, only learns VI, does not understand CI, and even calls CI to plan CI design, resulting in a shortage of real CI experts and talents in China; Second, China's market economy is also in the leading-in period. Western management theories are often difficult to digest, and foreign things cannot serve China. Designers in China have no time to study CI theory in order to make money, nor can they integrate the traditional culture of the motherland into CI scheme. Therefore, China's CI strategy cannot be formed in the end.
4. The third largest word country
Chen Youlong, an expert on CI strategy in China and the founder of China CI Network, believes that China's long-term planned economy has cultivated a red national quality and a Asian business culture different from that of the United States and Japan. Reform and opening-up have subverted this quality and culture, and at the same time, China has become a new super economy in the world. In this super economy with a large population and sub-Shang culture, a new form of CI will inevitably emerge, subverting the original CI and becoming one America after another. 1, improve quality of enterprise.
If the corporate image is vague, easy to be misunderstood and mistaken, the corporate name is inconsistent with the current situation of the enterprise, the goods are inconsistent with the trademark image, the visibility is too low, the competitiveness and cognitive degree of the image are at a disadvantage, the internal quality of the enterprise is poor, the morale of employees is low, and people are distracted, and the image of a certain commodity becomes an obstacle to other commodities, CI can be of great use. CI provides opportunities and methods to examine and solve these problems, helps enterprises to change their living conditions, even helps to solve the way out for enterprise development, breaks through business bottlenecks, injects new vitality into enterprises, and makes enterprises embark on the road of benign development.
2. Enhance corporate image
Corporate image includes not only external tangible factors such as products, trademarks, plant equipment, but also intangible factors such as reputation, style, values, business philosophy and code of conduct. CI is the integration of all image elements with business philosophy as the core, thus forming a comprehensive, unified and unique corporate image. It turns various features and elements of an enterprise into a simple visual symbol-logo and standard font, into a unified color, into a slogan and a behavior pattern, and then through various communication channels, people can recognize the enterprise at a glance in a colorful world.
3. Enhance internal cohesion.
The role of CI in enhancing enterprise cohesion and competitiveness is mainly manifested in two aspects: First, by creating and standardizing employees' values and behaviors, employees can transcend low-level narrow vision, mobilize them to form a * * * body with consistent interests, consciously adjust the relationship between individuals and collectives, and cultivate employees' sense of belonging, group consciousness and participation. Secondly, standardized and standardized visual design can give people a refreshing and vibrant feeling, create a good ecological environment for enterprises, achieve the purpose of impressing deeply, imperceptibly and deeply, and at the same time motivate employees' morale, mobilize their enthusiasm and creativity to the maximum extent, resulting in a collective effect of 1 plus 1 greater than 2.
4. Build consumer confidence
In modern society, customers are the god of enterprises. They use the banknotes in their hands as votes to support enterprises that meet their wishes. Consumer confidence is their voting orientation, and a good corporate image is the basis of voting. CI has created a unified and unique corporate image, such as a credit card issued by the enterprise to customers, so that customers can take bold purchase actions with confidence.
5. Create a business environment
A good corporate image, like a huge magnetic field, attracts social resources such as capital, technology and talents and maintains the long-term vitality of the enterprise. Excellent CI strategy attracts excellent talents to join and give full play to their greatest potential. It attracts bank loans, shareholder investment, government support, insurance company guarantees, etc., and creates a good external business environment for enterprises. The Coca-Cola Company once declared: If one day, a big fire turns the company into ashes, we can still rebuild the Coca-Cola Empire with the reputation of Coca-Cola. This is the success of Coca-Cola's excellent CI strategy. Although the United States and Japan, two big CI countries, have achieved rapid development of enterprises and economy by introducing CIS, China's unique human environment and CI's own defects have hindered its development in China.
1, the limitation of emphasizing the inside and neglecting the outside
CI strategy pays attention to the overall design of the subject in the shaping of corporate image, and pays attention to rational and technical means and methods in concrete operation, but pays less attention to the factors of enterprise and environment, that is, public relations, so it has obvious limitations in winning public trust.
You can't be immune to your limitations.
The management activities involved in CI strategy mainly emphasize the integration of public identity and enterprise's own behavior, so it has great limitations in deepening various management activities. The application of mental identity (MI) and behavior recognition (BI) is mainly reflected in review, arrangement, refinement and revision. Therefore, CI strategy can not replace enterprise management and public relations, but can only play a certain auxiliary and supplementary role.
3. Limitation of decreasing function
The function of CI strategy has the function of "decreasing function". From the whole society, with the wide application of CI strategy, the "differentiation" advantage gained by enterprises through introducing CI strategy is gradually fading. The more enterprises introduce CI strategy in the later stage, the more their CI benefits will be greatly inferior to those in the earlier stage. Therefore, it is entirely possible that the "advantage" gained by introducing CI strategy will only become the basic condition for enterprises to participate in competition in the future.
4. Enjoy the limitations of success.
There are certain conditions for introducing CI strategy. It requires enterprises to have considerable economic strength, product stereotypes and a certain market share, solid management foundation, high level of organization and management, and good quality of employees. These conditions limit the full use of CI strategy of SMEs to a certain extent.
5. Limitations of higher vocational threshold.
The implementation of CI strategy needs multidisciplinary talents to cooperate with the operation and experts to participate in the whole process, so it is difficult for enterprises to reserve so many talents. The planning, design, introduction and implementation of CI need professional institutions and professionals. It needs a collection of professional knowledge such as marketing, management, logic, psychology, sociology, public relations, politics, public opinion, communication, advertising, journalism, statistics and computer technology. , but also need strong judgment and decision-making ability and high policy level. This talent group must also understand the industry in which the enterprise is located. This is undoubtedly a difficult problem for the planning and design circles in China, which has just entered the market economy.
6. National conditions of "professional focus on money"
CI theory was originally introduced by China design circles, and what designers can do is actually the VI part of CI. Even if you are interested in MI and BI, you should study and explore for a long time. Moreover, in order to make quick money, many professional organizations and VI designers are not interested in learning CI, which leads to the separation of MI, BI and VI, making China CI like a tree without roots and water without sources.
7. Limitations of keeping pace with the times
Looking at the practice of CI strategy in China, combined with the increasingly perfect and mature reality of the market economy system, it is not difficult to find that the three subsystems of CI, namely, concept (MI), behavior (BI) and vision (VI), can only be used at the enterprise operation level, and can not fundamentally solve the urgent problems of strategic malnutrition and tactical dysplasia caused by long-term hard work rather than management and short-term interests rather than long-term planning of China enterprises, nor can it completely change the ""in China enterprises. During the Spring and Autumn Period, there was a jeweler in the State of Chu. In order to sell the jewelry well, he specially made many small boxes out of precious wood, carved and decorated the boxes beautifully, and let the boxes emit a fragrance, and then put the jewelry in the boxes. A man from Zheng saw the box containing the orb exquisite and beautiful. After asking the price, he bought one. He opened the box and found the treasure inside, but he didn't know its value, so he took it out and returned it to the jeweler, taking only the box.
This well-known idiom story of "buying gifts and returning pearls" appropriately satirizes the buyers of China's Ci (enterprises and other organizations) who abandoned the precious (MI) and only took a fancy to a box (VI). This is the current situation of CI in China.