1st shift – LABOUR/CONTRACT
CORPORATE IDENTITY
In the past, companies often rewarded their employees with medals for good performance. Today, what kind of acknowledgement does a corporation give to its employees?
54. Weaver, hero of the socialist labour. Ca. 1970. Period of State Socialism, 1944-1989. Interactive Museum of Industry, Gabrovo, Bulgaria.
A company’s marketing products are inseparable from its values, a good image is fundamental to the success of a brand. Which new branding strategies were brought to the industries through the Digital Revolution?
55. Advertisement of some of the beach articles produced by the biggest factory for plastics on the Balkan peninsula. Period of State Socialism, 1944-1989. Interactive Museum of Industry, Gabrovo, Bulgaria.
Corporate identity is a set of characteristics that identify an industrial infrastructure and which relates to its branding and marketing. These are all the elements that make an industrial infrastructure unique and at the same time enable the company to communicate with its clients, as well as to affirm its products. Some companies hold more than one brand with a distinct identity. Corporate identity is visible in different elements: graphic image, communication elements and strategies and production environments. As an historical example, we can address that the concept was founded by Peter Behrens (1868-1940) when he assumed the artistic consultancy of AEG company (1907-1911), his approach is still today considered an icon of the interconnection of architecture, design and advertising of the corporate identity of AEG.
During the last century of great economic development in Europe, there were several theories to increase productivity in the labour world. For a certain period, the industrial entrepreneurs managed to control every moment of its workers’ lives (the three shifts) by offering them family benefits and protection, often with a low salary – in such cases, corporate identity may dominate the individual workers. So, historically, corporate identity may include the control over the body and identity of the workers themselves.
Today, corporate identity can also be translated into the values and mission of a company. These are inseparable from the worker. Many companies are using occupational psychology to ensure that their industrial infrastructures are working properly. Both emotional pay and team building actions are motivational and emotional factors which help to define a corporate identity. The goals are always the same: to reinforce the feeling of belonging to a group, to increase the worker’s productivity and to guarantee the sustainable growth of the company. In the name of sustainability, the number of European companies promoting social responsibility strategies in defence of the environment, the economy or society has increased (Green Paper).