Skip to main content

Corporate Identity Mix

Identitätsmix

Klaus Birkigt, Marinus M. Stadler & Hans Joachim Funck · Verlag Moderne Industrie, Landsberg am Lech · 1986

Introduction
A Personality Expressed Through Three Instruments

Klaus Birkigt and Marinus M. Stadler proposed the corporate identity mix in their German book Corporate Identity: Grundlagen, Funktionen, Fallbeispiele, published with Hans Joachim Funck (Pérez & Rodríguez del Bosque, 2014, p. 16; Haslinger, 2004, p. 43). They define corporate identity as the "strategically planned and operationally applied internal and external self-presentation and behavior of a company" (Pérez & Rodríguez del Bosque, 2014, p. 48). The mix belongs to a view that sees corporate identity as more than names and logos: a company also shows who it is through what it does and what it says (Pérez & Rodríguez del Bosque, 2014, pp. 15–16). At its core is the corporate personality, which the company expresses through three instruments: behaviour, communication and design, that is, its appearance (Pérez & Rodríguez del Bosque, 2014, p. 16; Haslinger, 2004, p. 8). The book's figure sets this identity beside a smaller circle of the same structure, the corporate image, which the authors describe as the projection of identity in the social field (Haslinger, 2004, pp. 7–8).

The Model

Corporate Identity Mix: a large circle labelled Corporate Identity with Corporate Personality at its core and a ring divided into Corporate Behaviour, Corporate Design and Corporate Communication, joined by two lines to a smaller circle of the same structure labelled Corporate Image
Redrawn after Birkigt, Stadler and Funck (1998, p. 23) as reproduced in Haslinger (2004, p. 7), labels translated from the German original.

Elements

Definitions follow the summaries of Birkigt, Stadler and Funck's book in Haslinger (2004, p. 8), translated from German, and in Pérez and Rodríguez del Bosque (2014, pp. 16–25). Element names are the labels of the book's figure in the English wording of Lasch (2021, slide 9).

Corporate Identity

  • 01

    Corporate Personality

    Birkigt, Stadler and Funck place the corporate personality (Unternehmens-Persönlichkeit) at the centre of corporate identity, with the mission as the guide inside the firm (Haslinger, 2004, p. 8). A company shows this personality through symbolism, behaviour and communication (Pérez & Rodríguez del Bosque, 2014, pp. 16, 23).

  • 02

    Corporate Behaviour

    Corporate behaviour (Unternehmens-Verhalten) means how the company acts; important factors are its product, sales, social and financial policy, and what follows from that (Haslinger, 2004, p. 8). Of the ways to express the corporate personality, performance is usually seen as the most effective, since stakeholders mostly judge a firm by what it does (Pérez & Rodríguez del Bosque, 2014, p. 24).

  • 03

    Corporate Communication

    Within the identity mix (Identitätsmix), corporate communication (Unternehmens-Kommunikation) is the quickest and most adaptable tool (Haslinger, 2004, p. 8). When people form a picture of the company, what it says adds to what it does (Pérez & Rodríguez del Bosque, 2014, p. 25).

  • 04

    Corporate Design

    Corporate design (Unternehmens-Erscheinungsbild, literally "corporate appearance") is brand, product and graphic design and architecture taken together, and it changes with time (Haslinger, 2004, p. 8). Pérez and Rodríguez del Bosque, citing Balmer (2002), call this part of Birkigt and Stadler's mix symbolism (Pérez & Rodríguez del Bosque, 2014, pp. 16, 19).

Corporate Image

  • 05

    Corporate Image

    Corporate identity is the company's self-image; the corporate image is "the projection of identity in the social field" (Haslinger, 2004, p. 8; translated). In the figure, the image is a smaller circle with the same structure as the identity, joined to it by two lines (Haslinger, 2004, p. 7).

Source

  1. Haslinger, T. (2004). Corporate Identity von Designer/innen in Österreich am Beispiel der Corporate Identity von „Inbestform“ [Corporate Identity of Designers in Austria: The Example of the Corporate Identity of "Inbestform"] [Master's thesis, Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien]. Phaidra. https://services.phaidra.bibliothek.uni-ak.ac.at/api/object/o:37997/get
  2. Lasch, A. (2021, January). Reden Ist Nicht Alles: Management-Kommunikation auf dem Angewandt-Linguistischen Prüfstand [Talking Is Not Everything: Management Communication Put to the Test of Applied Linguistics] [Lecture slides, CC BY-SA 4.0]. Technische Universität Dresden. Retrieved October 12, 2026, from https://www.wu.ac.at/fileadmin/wu/d/i/slawisch/Reden_ist_nicht_alles-1.pdf
  3. Pérez, A., & Rodríguez del Bosque, I. (2014). Organizational and Corporate Identity Revisited: Toward a Comprehensive Understanding of Identity in Business. Corporate Reputation Review, 17(1), 3–27. https://doi.org/10.1057/crr.2013.22 [Accepted manuscript, cited by its own page numbers]. Retrieved October 12, 2026, from http://hdl.handle.net/10902/9481
  4. Birkigt, K., & Stadler, M. M. (with Funck, H. J.). (1986). Corporate Identity: Grundlagen, Funktionen, Fallbeispiele [Corporate Identity: Foundations, Functions, Case Studies]. Verlag Moderne Industrie. This is the originator's work; it is not freely accessible, so this profile draws on the substitute sources listed above.

Part of the Brand Identity Model Atlas. The atlas underpins the Brand-Building Canvas: a practical one-page brand identity and strategy framework for building, auditing, and repositioning brands. Download the PDF or PowerPoint template, or compare all brand identity models in the overview.