Keep Things Simple And Consistent – Basic Brand Management
Visual Consistency – Critical to building your Perception in the Marketplace
Having worked for several years with small-to-mid-size companies on a daily basis, the most common issue I find is a lack of consistency in their visual identity. These businesses all have reasons for not developing consistent brand marketing ranging from the belief that doing so would be cost-prohibitive, to not believing the scope of their business is large enough for consistency to matter.
The truth is that keeping your visuals consistent across media is one of the most effective and basic brand management strategies you can leverage to build a perception in the marketplace.
Simple and consistent use of the elements listed below, can tie your visual identities into an overall brand feeling and reinforce your other marketing efforts, thus enabling you to stretch the impact of your marketing investment to build on your design structure.
- Color
- Fonts
- Layouts and
- Graphical elements
Are you looking to develop consistency with your company’s brand?
A good way to start is to gather samples of all your brand’s collateral; the brochures, business cards, letterhead, print advertisements, and your website (anything that serves as a method of external communication) and see what common threads exist. I would ask you these questions:
- Is your company’s logo identical across all of these pieces, or is it presented with different colors and inconsistent shading?
- Do your website and brochure share similar visual components, imagery, colors, and layout, or does your website have a white background while your brochure is printed on patterned paper?
- Do your print advertisements use similar placing and fonts, or do they look like they’ve come from very different sources?
By doing this visual identity audit and seeing how your brand’s image is presented across media, it will give you a good idea of where to start, and where you might be able to update and improve.
Brand Management & Visual Consistency – A Marketing Goal
The costs of creating consistency can be minimized, particularly if it is planned and executed over time as a company’s visuals are updated. Consistent brand management improves perceived value resulting in consumers having a clear picture of a brand and becoming more willing to participate.
This will make the cost upfront of updating materials absorbed by the more focused marketing and potential for an easier sell. And by keeping a brand’s visuals consistent, it’s much easier to focus on faster message communication with potential customers instead of having to establish and build a brand in customers’ minds with every external communication a company makes.
This is an article from Customer Passion Point Limited (CPPL). We are a consulting firm that provides advertising, training, and consulting solutions to small, medium, and large corporations across industries and sectors. Call or WhatsApp on 07011962027 or visit www.cppl.com.ng for inquiries.
