A distinct and powerful corporate persona is a powerful tool that can distinguish a company from its competitors. Successful corporate branding helps create a bond between the company and its audiences, often far more extensively than through product branding. Modern 
examples have shown the extreme power of successful corporate branding. Here’s an example: Apple. As the fury of the iPad can attest, this company has been enormously successful in developing a brand personality associated with exciting, cutting-edge technology that transcends a specific product or product line. Here lies a key benefit of corporate branding: immediate base value for all products under the corporate umbrella.
Pharma companies face a unique challenge in this situation. Due to the complex regulations in their sector, they tend to favor keeping their products as separate branded entities. However, as brand loyalty becomes more relevant under increased competition, we are seeing more and more pharmas starting to get their feet wet in the corporate branding renaissance.
The Right Way
A great example is Johnson & Johnson. For a company with an extremely diversified portfolio of well-known brands, it can be challenging to develop a cohesive identity for the corporation as a whole. J&J has created a focused, holistic campaign to utilize PR and social media to develop a unified brand that supports the entire corporate identity, rather than just specific brands. Tactics such as the blog “JNJBTW” provide a personal voice for the company and frame it as an involved, responsive and cohesive entity, rather than an amalgamation of brands and products. Johnson & Johnson even has a secondary blog, “Kilmer House”, detailing the history of the company and its constituents. These informal and relatable blogs are extremely advantageous and relevant to a unified corporate brand strategy.
The Risks
We cannot, however, ignore some of the inherent risks within corporate branding. Unlike product branding which can serve as a standalone business for every individual product, corporate branding takes a longer time to become fully implemented and is affected by all aspects of the company. One piece of negative news concerning the company or a product may have a negative impact on the overall corporate brand overnight, as we have seen recently with Genzyme’s viral contamination problem. Because of these risks, a safe mantra of corporate branding is to do it gradually, continuously, and carefully.
The Remedy
J&J’s success should be a provocative example for its peers. Their unified corporate front demonstrates a strong business foundation and creates customer loyalty, while reinforcing individual product brands. While the pharmaceutical industry may still be waiting for its own Apple, the path forward is clear. Creating a respected, reliable corporate brand is necessary to earn the loyalty of the medical community and the public.
Cindy Miller
Vice President, Product and Marketing Communcations
