Does a Corporate Identity really matter?

Malvern Link

Does a Corporate Identity really matter?

Making Regional Railways into the kind of service that we'd all like to use.

Yes it does, for several important reasons. First and foremost, you, the people who make Regional Railways what it is and what it will become, need to know who and what you are working for. You need to be able to recognise everything and everyone that is part of the business if you are genuinely to feel a member of the team.

Once the team has succeeded in making Regional Railways into the kind of service that we’d all like to use – one that customers can rely on, that takes them where they want to go, in comfort and on time – the corporate identity will have become much more than a code for identifying different bits of the business. It will have become the outward visible sign of an organisation that gives its customers what they want, a service that its workforce will have built together and will be proud to live up to.

By then the corporate identity will be doing a parallel and equally important job in the eyes of the customers. It will have become a symbol of all the virtues that together add up to the “brand”: competence, reliability, high standards of care and maintenance, and friendly service. We want our customers to feel a sense of confidence whenever they recognise any part of the Regional Railways corporate identity.

A corporate identity is a two-edged sword. Its message is: “We are the people who are responsible for this service that you are receiving”. And it says that, whether the service is good or bad. We have to ensure that at all times and in all circumstances it is good or we damage the customers’ view of us and, ultimately, our business.

Managing the new Identity

Managing the new Identity

Getting things right first time is the goal.

The Regional Railways corporate identity scheme tends quite deliberately towards restraint and understatement, a hallmark of quality in any walk of life. It accommodates local architectural and environmental characteristics. But make no mistake, flexibility is built into the scheme. The scheme itself must be applied rigorously if it is to achieve its proper impact.

And that means paying attention to detail, whether it is a question of using the right local material to restore a station building or simply developing a reputation for being a network whose stations are always swept clean, whose facilities always work.

Getting those things right requires constant effort but it also develops a real sense of satisfaction in everyone involved. It’s a little like putting on a play, but a play with a lifetime of opening nights and a vast audience comprising not only our customers but also other people within the business. Getting things ‘right on the night’ is the goal. To achieve it will be tremendously rewarding, on a personal as well as a business level.

The core of the new Regional Railways corporate identity scheme is contained in the Identity Management binder, a copy of which should be accessible to anyone who has any responsibility for implementing any part of the identity. It contains individual information sheets, each dealing with one specific aspect of the identity, or one part of one specific aspect. Because a corporate identity is never static, the information sheets are updated and added to as the need arises.

Both the binder and this brochure contain lists of contacts who will be able to assist with any queries or problems relating to particular aspects of the identity. Queries on general aspects of the identity should go to the Identity Manager who is also on the list of contacts.

Our aim is to provide, with the aid of the Identity Management Binder and this brochure, totally clear and unambiguous instructions on how to put the corporate identity into practice. And putting it into practice is a matter of obligation. It is not an option.

1992 // THIS IS TRANSDIFFUSION