Brand consistency – Getting the right look

Everywhere you go you will see companies promoting their brands, arguable some do it well whereas others seems to lack brand consistency. When done well consistent branding enables companies to differentiate their product through iconic logos, key messages, colours and those catchy straplines. In turn this encourages brand loyalty by creating trust in their product or service.

However, achieving brand consistency can be easier said than done in some cases.

One way of assisting with achieving brand consistency is once you have established a brand for your product or service you need to ensure that you create a set of guidelines. This will ensure that your brand remains consistent across all your marketing activity, which includes your corporate merchandise and uniform.

These brand guidelines should clearly outline all of the requirements from a messaging and visual imagery perspective. Within the document it should clearly cover topics such as key messages for the company and each product, key features and benefits, colour references (Pantone, CMYK or RGN) font styles and layouts items of corporate literature such as on business cards so that they can be no doubt of what is required.

It is important to remember that your brand is a representation of your business. It is the corporate image and identity which will ultimately build product recognition amongst your consumers. It will reinforce your identity building trust and credibility.

Larger companies often struggle with maintaining brand consistency due to the sheer number of people that may be involved in marketing decisions. For example, department heads may be responsible for ordering their teams’ uniform requirements. A simple mistake like sending the wrong logo or ordering the wrong shade of blue polo shirt to the uniform supplier can all of a sudden see a company looking very different across all the departments.

If a customer is expecting a team of IT installers to come and undertake a project onsite and they are all dressed in different clothing this can lead to confusion and leave a perception of the company lacking professionalism. This can then cause doubt to creep in on how well the job they are undertaking will be performed.

Every element of your business needs to communicate the same brand image. If your social media is fun and outgoing but your product packaging is plain and dull then you are sending out mixed signals. Likewise if you are selling a professional service and your team are wearing jeans and scruffy t-shirts you will start to confuse your customers and leaving them untrusting of you.

One way to ensure that brand consistency is achieved when ordering your corporate merchandise and workwear is through a dedicated online system. Here all your company’s items are stored online in an account where staff can access and order the correct items with the approved branding. It’s a great way to not only make ordering easier but also eliminates the risk of error. A win-win situation all round.

For more information contact the team at ACE on 0121 559 1234 or visit www.ace-embroidery.co.uk.