What is corporate image?

Corporate Image is another blanket-term, used to describe how an organisation’s staff and public actually perceive it to be. It is the impression that its various audiences have of it, formed through their contact with the organisation and as a result of all the conscious and subconscious messages they receive, both intentional and unintentional, good and bad.

Corporate Image is in the eye of the beholder, but by treating the business’s different audiences as distinct groups (e.g. customers, suppliers, employees, shareholders, analysts etc.) and then monitoring the opinions of selected individuals within each group, trends and commonly held views can usually be found and analysed.

Continuing with the analogy on the previous page: your work colleagues each have a certain impression of you, based on what they see and hear, and on your dealings with them on a day-to-day basis. If you were to collect the opinions of all who know you, some similar impressions would doubtless emerge and this collective perception of your personality is your image.