COFCO Corporate branding
COFCO wanted to strengthen its corporate brand in order to withstand the challenges of an increasingly competitive marketplace as a result of China’s entry into the WTO.
COFCO needed to develop a brand strategy, brand architecture and refresh its visual identity system.
Brand Strategy and Visual Identity
Through in-depth interviews, extensive research and analysis, we explored and summarized the opportunities and ambitions for COFCO. We defined their brand mission, vision, core competencies and values, ultimately repositioning the brand as the “enabler of the nature”. The brand’s role was then to improve the life of people by working in harmony with nature.
This brand promise was applied to all the subsidiaries and product brands across the entire COFCO business. It also inspired the brand’s visual expression and identity system as well as encouraged a change of mindset with employees
Visual Identity
Based on the brand strategy, the logomark was designed to symbolise the harmonious relationship between sky, earth, people and life; as well as illustrate the role of COFCO as the enabler of this union.
Brand Architecture
With more than 100 subsidiaries and 20 product brands, COFCO’s previous brand architecture was extremely cumbersome and communicated inconsistently to stakeholders. To streamline the complex relationships amongst these entities and product brands, The Brand Union worked closely with the sector heads in COFCO to develop 2 specific decision trees for the brand architecture.
The team then proceeded to demonstrate these relationships visually in major applications such as namecards, as well as product packaging and advertisement templates.
The new COFCO identity was launched to both internal and external audiences in October 2006.
