Branding Consistently

The hardest part about branding is keeping tight control of your branding consistency—always using the same logo, sticking with your tagline, maintaining your presence in the media, and sticking with your plan. Consistent branding is hard because it’s so much easier, and often faster, to get things done and check things off your list. We’ve all done it. Grabbed a logo and slapped it on a piece of advertising, and in our haste to get it to print, we “forget” to ask ourselves how it fits with our manifesto or check to make sure that it looks and sounds like the other advertising we’ve done, or that the logo is the “right one” and not the one with the funky colors. It’s tempting at that moment to waiver from your brand position and get the ad done and sent off – but if you do, you’re doing yourself and your business a huge disservice.

Faster isn’t better for branding consistently.

Every person who sees that hastily put-together ad that is not tightly aligned with your brand will see your company representing itself differently. And while that may not be the end of the world, it certainly does make it harder for you the next time you want to put an ad out – because they won’t know what to expect from you. You’ve also lost a vital opportunity to reinforce your brand message and strengthen your overall brand position by sticking with consistency. Admittedly, ensuring that everything your company produces represents your brand is challenging. It’s especially hard for product promotions. But if you spend the time and find a way to make the product promotion reflect your brand, you’ll be better off. The dollars you spend on marketing the promotion will be leveraged in the future every time you run a new ad – and that’s a worthwhile investment. So, while it’s harder to maintain a consistent brand, it will pay off in the long run with leveraged dollars and customers who know what to expect from your company. And when they know what to expect, they understand why they want to do business with you.