A corporate image depicts the principles, beliefs, productivity of the company. This image is responsible for increasing the sales of the product and to achieve brand equity. Corporate image creation is a strenuous and time consuming process and is carried out by experts qualifying in perception management. Basically, the creation involves marketing experts who use various types of promotional and public relations methods. Since this image is targeted to attract the customers it should be very appealing. Besides the marketing experts, critics play an important role as well.

The name of the corporation and its catch line should reflect its mission like Wal-Mart, which says that it sells for less. A logo should also be designed accordingly. The corporation FedEx has an arrow incorporated in its logo which depicts its fast and efficient service. Once the image is created by the corporation, the next step is advertising and product distribution in the market. If a corporation creates luxury products, it should rope in big names in the advertising experts and the models to be featured in these ads should be super stars. Likewise, they should not distribute their products to every other store; instead they should target more hi-fi malls. From time to time, the advertising and branding budget should be reviewed to evaluate cost efficiency and to be in-sync with the technology. This also helps in revamping the corporate image to keep up with the fast changing demands of the consumer.

Testimonials of news papers, magazines, and labor unions can deteriorate a well-created corporate image. The simplest of controversies can be exaggerated by the media and spoil the name of the company. Controversies are born by the interference of organizations related to environment, religion, crime, politics, education or charity. Government, too, is another powerful and influential organization by itself.

Once the corporate image is created, it should be retained. It should not be here today and gone tomorrow. This image should be reflected in all of the brands and product lines of the corporation. Even if one of the products isn’t up to par, it will lead to confusion among the consumers and will hit the sales of the company. Like recently there was controversy about a particular contact lens solution of a company. It was supposed to be infecting the users with a rare disease. This not only affected the sales revenue of that particular product but also made the customers think and raise question about the authenticity of other products of that particular company.

Another company’s products had hidden a non-vegetarian ingredient in a vegetarian product. This led to the decrease of trust among the customers. In such a case, the company should either advertise itself as a company selling non-vegetarian food or it should invest in promoting the company as vegetarian by introducing more vegetarian products. So the image of each individual product of the company makes up for the complete image of the corporation. Last but not least, the image should be very realistic and truly representative of its values and should leave a personal touch feeling with the consumers.