Whilst completing work experience at my professional placement, the consultancy itself was in the process of rebranding, which is still ongoing at present. I was fortunate enough to be invited to partake in attending some of the redevelopment meetings and found it gave an interesting insight into how organisations, like PR consultancies, start the process of constructing their desired corporate identity. The rebranding process of the consultancy was essentially part of taking steps forward in achieving the consultancy’s mission; to be a well-recognised and respected public relations consultancy, (on both national and international platforms).
The more immediate aim of the rebranding was to create a corporate identity which better reflects the corporate culture and overall organisational image Sinclair Consulting is trying to encapsulate – that being; professional, contemporary, unique, innovative, motivated, considerate, prestigious and Perth-based.
As part of achieving consistency, throughout all elements that construct new corporate identity, the consultancy is updating all of Sinclair Consulting’s corporate identity materials such as; the Sinclair Consulting logo, document templates, promotional materials, website design and associated corporate images (that will be displayed as the backdrop for his website when it finally goes live).
On reflection, I found the meetings concerning the redevelopment of the consultancy’s website in particular to have given me good insight into the complexity of, and content required, to build a website for an organisation. It also gave me some understanding of how certain functionalities in website design are constructed and the end result they will give the user, such as ease of access in navigating around a site or keeping online engagement within a site - (which now is an important factor for increasing a websites SEO).
The meetings also enabled me to be an active part in contributing as part of the Sinclair Consulting team to what we thought would be valuable content to include on the website, functionalities that would contribute to engaging the consultancy’s stakeholders online, as well as images that would evoke association with the desired corporate identity of Sinclair Consulting. I found this process very interesting and it gave me a better understanding of how new technologies have changed the processes now used for online media tools to gain an outcome for an organisation, like increased online presence.
Most interestingly it reinforced how technology is now such an integral part of practising successful public relations, not only for clients but for a consultancy itself, operating in the modern world. It also highlighted models of stakeholder engagement we learnt during our studies, such as Grunig and Hunt’s 1984 model of “Two-Way Symmetrical Communication”, that are still been applied in a ‘real-life’ context today. This was especially reflected when we were discussing how elements of the website (such as content) would help facilitate stakeholder engagement through an online medium.
