Brands are built around four fundamentals: product differentiation, relevance, esteem, and knowledge But the magic ingredient that converts those fundamentals into a branding success story is consistency. If you bring consistency to your branding program, you end up with a brand that stands head and shoulders Above the others.
What is brand consistency?
- Brand consistency is where a business attempts to communicate messages in a way which doesn’t detract or wander away from the core brand proposition.
For example, a single logo is always used in a similar way on all marketing materials, a single typeface is used with particular guidelines on typography, consistent color ranges are applied and similar design styles, so that everything visual is inter-linked and has a link back to that core brand proposition. Every piece of marketing material is like a member of the same family, supporting and even looking similar to all the other members in the family.
- The brand has it’s own unique “look” which enables a consumer to recognize it as belonging to that brand proposition and distinguish it from competing brands.
This visual “look” often evolves slowly over time but the core message of all successful brands never really changes.
Why bother with brand consistency?
- Brand consistency has one massive advantage – recognition.
- With recognition comes familiarity.
- With familiarity comes trust and confidence.
- Consistency brings clarity and purpose which consumers buy into. Customers become loyal.
Brand consistency often takes many years to master before it really starts working for you. This means you need to think long term. Leading brands are normally leading because they have had many years of consistency behind them and they have had a long term goal for their branding which has been consistent. The trick is to have in place a clear idea of your brand and then the right people (Us!) in place to guard it.