A successful brand is one that has considered all aspects of how engages with its customer and brand consistency is vital in this day and age.
So what is brand consistency?
Your customers have never had as many chances to interact with your brand as they do today. Gone are the days when a customer would only encounter the traditional forms of corporate identity such as branded stationery, brochures and potentially adverts or other promotional items.
Today customers interact with every facet of your brand through PR, digital marketing, social media, events and experiential marketing, to name a few.
If you do not have well-designed branding guidelines or a clearly defined brand strategy the opportunity for inconsistencies to creep in is tremendous.
All too often the urgent trumps the necessary and materials may have been put together without the control over the brand that you would have liked. The price of this might be hard to measure, but investment in considering all brand applications results in a consistent brand.
Successful organisations do not leave such messaging to chance and control the use of their brand via a well-considered and detailed brand strategy and guidelines.
A well-prepared and thought through set of guidelines can provide instructions and guidance on subjects including:
- Logo Application – How to control logos and other design elements that make up the visual form of the brand identity. Are there alternate versions for different applications, backgrounds and sizes?
- Fonts and their usage – What typefaces to use and when.
- Colour palette – The range of colours available, what they represent and how they should be utilised.
- The tone of Voice & Messaging – Guidance on language, the tone of voice, straplines and style of any copy used.
- Corporate marketing materials – From brochures to advertising and exhibition design. What templates exist, and how and when to use them.
- Communications (Internal and External) – Details on layout, structure and recurring themes.
- Digital Advertising and Social Media guidelines – Keywords, Landing pages and other key guidance.
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Consistent brand messaging across all channels
It is possible to deliver branded projects across any single channel without a strategy or set of guidelines, but as soon as you start using additional channels, you are less and less likely to maintain control and achieve any form of brand consistency.
So, any potential growth of your organisation and its brand are dependent on your ability to manage and control its application correctly & consistently.
How can brand consistency be achieved?
If you are committed to the success and growth of your brand, a clearly defined brand strategy and associated guidelines are an invaluable asset, and well worth the investment.
Money spent now on getting the fundamental elements of your brand identified and qualified will pay for itself in the long run as you won’t have to pay for ‘Brand development’ on every job, just provide the guidelines.
If you don’t have a brand strategy or brand guidelines and would like to create them, you should talk to toast today, and we can help.
How can Toast help?
Over the last decade, we have seen a growing appreciation of the importance of brand consistency and the requirement for a professionally created brand identity.
We saw this demand driven not just by start-ups but from companies that have been running for years and are looking to gain more control of their brand.
Whatever stage your business or organisation is at, a branding workshop at Toast will help you get your branding spot on today, tomorrow and into the future.
If you would like to know more about our branding workshops, then contact us today to find out more.
