What is the physical identity of the gap analysis model?

The physical identity is one of the four parts of the gap analysis model in which a brand can be distinguished. The other three components are the desired identity, the actual identity and the image of the brand.

A brand’s physical identity consists entirely of elements that can be perceived by one of the five senses: sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell. It concerns all parts by which a brand can be recognized and distinguished. This means that everything that an organization does that puts it in contact with an external interest group (customers, suppliers, shareholders, etc.) belongs to its physical identity.

A brand element can be anything in the physical identity, as long as it is actually verifiable. Someone’s opinion about the appearance of the brand is not an actual part of this and therefore does not belong to the physical identity. This is different for everyone. If it needs to be thought about, it is not physical. This is not a fixed brand element. It is useful to answer the following questions in order to be able to think of what does belong to the physical identity of the brand:
In what ways can a consumer come into contact with this brand?
How can a consumer recognize the brand?
In what ways does the company communicate the brand and the products/services to the target group?

The physical identity in five categories

According to the theory, physical identity can be divided into five categories with brand elements. It concerns the following five categories:
Products and services

• Information
• Symbolism
• Surroundings
• Behaviour

The products and services

Every organization has one or more products or services that it offers to the target group. At a supermarket, for example, the products are all the goods on the shelves and the delivery service of that same supermarket is an offered service. These are examples of contact points through which, for example, a customer is in contact with the organization and thus the brand.

Information

Information refers to all communications to external interest groups. This includes, for example, all advertising that an organization makes for its products or services. This includes a cardboard display board and a shop window, as well as the website and a Facebook page.

Symbolism

Symbolism includes all recognizable style elements. Style elements make a brand and the associated organization recognizable in a certain environment. To name a few examples, these are a logo, a certain mascot (the man from bol.com) or a certain recognizable house style (the leaning e of Heineken or the blue and orange of Coolblue).

Surroundings

The environment includes all things that an organization needs in order to operate. These are often physical items such as buildings (shops, factories or a head office), but also company vehicles and the excavators of a construction company. This can also be an event such as the Vrienden van Amstel Live, of which the beer brand Amstel can be seen everywhere as the main sponsor

Behaviour

How a certain employee behaves is called the behavior of a brand. This may include how an employee wears company clothing, but also the degree of formality in which the customer is addressed. The behavior of a brand is something personal on which the brand is expressed. For example, how does a store employee deal with a telephone complaint? All these things are considered part of the behavior of a brand.

Practice

In practice it is difficult to keep all these things separate. These bags often overlap quite a bit. For example, can an employee who tips a customer about an upcoming discount promotion be counted as ‘information’ or as ‘behaviour’? The same applies to the packaging of a product. Is this ‘products and services’ or is this ‘information’? So it is not really possible to draw a clear line between all these categories. They constantly overlap.

Perceiving a brand with senses: seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling and tasting
Most people will have five senses with which they perceive the world. In these same five ways, all parts of a brand can be perceived by customers, shareholders, suppliers and other outside interest groups.

Seeing a brand

First of all, the physical identity of a brand can consist of visual brand elements. This means that the physical identity first consists of all the things where someone can recognize the brand with his or her eyes. With most brands, this is a very large part of the entire brand. It is therefore quickly possible to overlook certain important things. You can think of:
Fixed style elements. This concerns matters such as the logo, the house style, a mascot and the graphically elaborated slogan.
means of communication. Think of the website, a p

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business management

Many things promote the popularity of a brand. These things make the brand successful each year. Aside from the digital marketing skills of the brand, online reviews are also of great help to a company’s growth. Online reviews help with the expansion and influence of the brand in the global commercial space.

In today’s culture, the customer perspective about e-commerce stores is of high regard. Shopping online has been much easier and possible through the access to customer experience discussions. This is why many brands have been advised to invest in enabling a better customer experience every time. When customers are happy, the business can easily expand and record a skyrocketing series of successes. The following are ways through which sharing experiences help in contributing to customer satisfaction:

1. It is Important Now: Experience is key to any future expectations, especially with e-commerce stores. Today, the competitions the internet has enabled has increased the need for brands to be more accurate and dependable. Brands must satisfy their customers and make them consistent shoppers on their platforms. This is why entrepreneurs use some digital algorithms to identify customer interest through the products a shopper views or reads about. By keeping an eye on your interest and offering you popups of such products, they live to facilitate your interest. After this, the offering of top-notch customer service secures the loyalty of the customer.

2. New Customers Can Become Loyal: With the medium to share customer experiences online, new buyers can be impressed. They can visit such stores for their products and also enjoy the services they offer. To attain new customers is difficult, which is why sharing customer experiences online is a unique feature of online stores. Through it, the brand enhances its reputation. Through this, they shape the customer’s psychology to their favor.

3. It is a Powerful Advertising and Promotion Tool: Brands that hire ambassadors from their client base did it for a reason. When there is a customer who patronizes often, he or she could be an ambassador. This means that the shopper’s reputation and experiences can be used to validate their enterprise and take their business to new clients. Customers also sometimes advocate for the expansions of their favorite online store. Some customers write reviews on their social media page after using a product. These reviews are sometimes everything the brand needs to achieve more success in the industry.

4. It Seals Business to Customer Relationship: Businesses and customers can establish a closer relationship through the sharing of their experiences. Customers who write a critical review may perhaps get a response from the brand. Such responses may be surprising, but it is aimed at improving the quality of their services. This makes it important for businesses to enhance customer experience and create a space that documents these experiences.

Sharing customer experiences is an important part of e-commerce activities now. It helps in creating new yet loyal customers and it serves as a powerful promotion and advertisement tool for the brand. In all, it seals the relationship of the business and the customer, and this improves overall business growth.