Daniel Peters asked:
The idea of corporate clothing as a marketing and branding tool is far from a new idea, staff uniforms have been around for many years, but is it possible to combine both concepts into a single, well thought out package which will achieve two goals at once?
Firstly, let us take a look at the two separate issues. If we consider that staff uniforms can be used effectively as part of a brand extension campaign, we already know that having your company colour scheme, logo and slogan in front of potential clients and business contact can extend the reach of your business.
Now let us consider staff uniforms. In certain situations where a team effort is required, it can be extremely beneficial to distribute staff uniforms. The reason for this is twofold, initially it will help to build team spirit -nothing causes a workforce to gel more than a standard uniform- secondly a staff uniform will help to control the more flamboyant, possibly troublesome characters within the organisation. In effect a staff uniform flattens the bell curve somewhat resulting in a more stable team.
So is it possible to combine both a marketing exercise and a human resources project into a single unified whole? The answer has to be a simple yes. We have witnessed this very thing done in so many situations, for example think about certain large fast food chains that have a very strong branding carried by their corporate clothing and staff uniforms. Even the management staff will wear shirts and ties with branding, a very direct and obvious use of corporate clothing, whilst the customer facing staff wear a full staff uniform that leaves not a single doubt in a customer’s mind as to which company they work for.
So we see that it is in fact entirely possible to achieve two goals through one project, by rolling out staff uniforms and defining your brand via this staff uniform you will be underpinning the fundamental team based nature of your organisation and presenting a common brand to the general public.
Corporate clothing as a branding exercise works; staff uniforms as a team building exercise works; so it makes perfect sense to combing the two into a single effective and far reaching project. If we consider that a staff uniform will be worn on the way in to work, and on the way home from work, we realise that not only is the brand going to be presented to potential customers in the work environment, it is also going to be carried out in to the general populous by those staff who rely upon public transport to commute to the work space each day, this is a potentially huge possibility for any company to explore, traditional advertising space on public transport is neither cheap nor far reaching, a simple staff uniform, backed up by more traditional forms of corporate clothing at management and executive level offer your company an unprecedented chance to extend the reach of your brand whilst accruing human resource benefits through improved team work.