Brand Consistency can be defined as the process where the brand attempts to communicate the messages pertaining to the brand and its offerings in a manner that does not detract away from the core values, brand strategy, fundamentals, and foundation of the brand.
Brand Consistency is one of the most significant principals of the overall concept of brand and is the secret of success behind the brand’s success.
Every brand has its own style of creative elements, color palette, typeface, language, and tonality to convey the important messages to the market and the target audience that gives it a unique identity and differentiates it from the competitors.
With the factor of Brand Consistency and enough repetition through the expressions and messages, the brand elements get ingrained in the minds of the consumers working as a top of the mind recall factor.
Having an integrated marketing approach and efforts is the vital key to maintaining Brand Consistency. The realms of consistency need to be maintained right from the placement of the logo in a proper manner in the various creative artworks and marketing collaterals, Pantone shades of the brand, packaging, paper quality used for stationary, brochures, and other printing requirements, to creative’s for marketing and promotional channels.
Importance of Brand Consistency :
Maintaining and formulating the highest and integrated levels of Brand Consistency is done by seldom brands in the market and usually, those are the brands that have attained the pinnacle of success as it is one of the key elements for the success of the brand and company as a whole.
It involves marketing and branding on the higher levels with the management getting keenly involved in each and every facet of advertisement, corporate communications, creative artworks, and every messaging statement and communication that gets conveyed to the market and the target audience.
It is the thumb rule of marketing that the consumers trust the brand that they recognize and then only indulge in the purchase of the products offered by the brand and the factor of Brand Consistency works as a catalyst to create an emotional connection with the customer as he is witnessing the similar type of creative’s and communication messages that entice and interest him at the same time and gets registered in his mind. Furthermore, the consistency of brand instills the factor of trust and dependability towards the brand making him know the brand on the personal level.
There is also an attribute of reliability attached to the factor of Brand Consistency as when the consumers see and feel the similar line and types of messages, creative artworks, and communications on every media and marketing platform; he perceives the brand to be more reliable and authentic giving the brand a competitive advantage in the market.
Examples of Brand Consistency :
1) Dropbox
The cloud-based file sharing platform is one of the finest examples of Brand Consistency on the digital platform as its signature logo showcasing an open box having a feel like its sketched with a blue water pencil is quite catchy and enticing.
Every communication from the brand right from the email messages to the banner ads on various websites carry the logo that gets recognized and instantly registers in the consumer’s mind. The email communication from the brand has a vibe of fun and personalized messages working as a yet another factor of Brand Consistency.
2) Dove
The soap and shampoo brand is one of the renowned brands in the retail industry as it has been dedicatedly maintaining its Brand Consistency through its nature of products and packaging designs amongst others.
The shampoo and conditioner bottles always have the white background with the glaring blue color logo showcasing the brand name in an aesthetic manner. All the product packaging and marketing communication from the brand are designed using the similar color shades, fonts, and play of other creative elements and one can easily recognize the brand products even without noticing the brand name.
How to maintain Brand Consistency?
1) Humanize your brand
It is the human psychology to recognize other human beings in the way they dress, talk, and on the basis of their inherent characteristics that make one different from the other. To maintain Brand Consistency, it is important for the brand managers to humanize their brand that will result in creating emotional and personalized connections with the consumers.
They need to add the certain and specific set of traits and characteristics to the brand such as the tonality of language, Pantone shades, messaging strategy, the voice of the brand, typeface, and jingle amongst others that are unique and exclusive to the brand.
2) Have a set of corporate guidelines
Whilst working on the elements of the brand architecture that comprises of logo, tagline, typography, mascot, messaging strategy, and color palette; it is vital to set the checklist of corporate guidelines that guide the management, employees, vendors, and designing agencies of the brand on how to use the creative elements of the brand in the most aesthetic and consistent manner.
For example, one of the crucial point in the checklists include to not to change the color scheme of the logo. Inconsistency in the branding and related strategies is one of the biggest obstacles for the brand to be successful in the market.
3) Understand the mission and vision of your brand
It is imperative to understand the vision and mission of your brand that comprises the core values, objectives, ethos, and fundamentals. And once the same is thoroughly grasped by the management and the brand managers, they will be able to showcase and promote the brand maintaining the facets of consistency.
4) Set up an approval process
One of the reasons behind the inconsistency of the brand is that there are loopholes and communication gaps within the marketing and branding departments. As the companies grow, many new employees get hired and many of them quit the firm owing to future opportunities and hence, this gap results in the brand inconsistency.
Hence, it is important to set up a strict and thorough approval process for all the creative artworks and corporate and marketing communications with the marketing director or any key member of management being the approving authority in order to avoid the discrepancies and maintain Brand Consistency.
5) Be authentic
It is important for the brand to be authentic in its approach, offerings, and the overall brand expressions rather than taking inspiration from the other brands in the market. This facet ensures enhanced brand reach, value, and recall factor.
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