What happens when your branding isn't consistent?

If you’ve been reading our blogs over the past several months you’ll know that we take the matter of branding very seriously. Your brand, after all, represents you, it’s the face you present to the public and therefore what you’re judged on. It needs to be consistent, predictable and to engender confidence. In the same way that you’d protect your reputation you should protect your brand.

Have you been on the receiving end of one of the many false emails that purport to be from one of the banks, or Ebay or Amazon? You can always tell that they’re not genuine, can’t you? There’s something about the wording or colours, the font or maybe just the layout that tells you that something isn’t right. And you recognise it because of the strength and consistency of the genuine company’s branding…you know what to expect and anything else doesn’t ring true.

All the above leads to one point. It’s vital to maintain consistency across all your branding. Your branding guidelines need to be complete and give concise and clear instructions as to how everything that will be looked at or read should be seen and perceived. Your colour palette should be defined and applicable to every medium and substrate, allowing your logo to look the same on the screen as it does on the side of a bus. Your choice of fonts should apply across all applications, as should the colour. The spacing and layout of paragraphs should be consistent. Even the white space you leave around your logo should be defined, as should the colour of any background. Importantly, the tone of voice and the words you use should be defined and adhered to, as should your style of your writing. Many companies have a style guide for punctuation (you can’t go wrong if you follow the Economist’s guide).

Lastly, you need to make sure that everyone knows! Branding guidelines aren’t just for your marketing agency, they’re for your staff too. Again it’s all about consistency.