Why Brand Guides Have A Missing Link, and How We Solved It
Assignment → Brand Guide → ???→ Execution.
Brand guides are often apart of the unsung heroes in the growth of a major company. You don’t frequently hear “Wow, Coca Cola has the best brand guide.”
Yet as anyone in that organization will tell you, the brand is the lifeblood of the company. Its the intangible spirit that every employee embodies and carries with them throughout their day to day tasks. Its the beliefs and goals of the company they work for and reference for their own goals to stay on track. The brand guide is therefore the company bible.
However the brand guide has possessed a missing link for far too long. As we moved into a digital age, you would think the organization of the brand assets would have become stronger and complete, but it has become weak and disjointed.
As the employee of Brandisty, my goal is to perform my tasks while carrying out company objectives, marketing strategies, and global initiatives that are in unison with the overall brand.
To help me with this, I have the brand guide. But what about our brand assets? The brand guide has become a manual with no tools. The brand guide references ‘how’ the brand should be used, but access to the ‘what’ part of the brand has become tiresome.
Too often companies send out brand guides with strict rules detailing how to use each asset, but therein lies the disconnect. The correct assets are nearly impossible to come by. Now I’m sure your first reaction is, “my designer has them.” Well sure, but here’s the reality — You’re either going to get stuck in a game of Brand Pong, which I wrote about a few weeks ago, or it will take too much time and effort which leads to the next best solution. A Google image search and hope for the best.
The flow works like this:
I get assigned with a project that requires me to use some aspect of our brand assets. I have the brand guide for reference on how to use the assets but I can’t receive the assets from the brand guide. I send out an email to the designer who does have it but this process takes time, both out of my schedule and his/hers.
The other scenario is someone (often outside the company) who understands the difficulty in receiving the correct assets, so they use Google image search to find whatever they can. They might not find the best possible logo, and it might be a little out dated or pixelated, but they are getting their job done in a timely manner.
Are brand guides ineffective? Absolutely not. They are the bible and life blood of your company. However, they preach that you use the assets in a very detailed and defined way. Don’t make assets so hard to come by that people begin to go around your brand guide.
At Brandisty, we help you stop brand pong and keep the same brand consistency that your brand guide preaches.
