The Importance of Branding as Trust, Identification, and Wayfinding
A few weeks ago Michigan State University released new brand standards, which stirred some interesting internal conversations for us at Gravity Works. We love conversations. While we know following brand standards in the enterprise can be challenging, we also know the importance of following these standards — and understanding why. It’s important that as a communicator, or any representative of an organization, your team has the tools to tell a complete, compelling story. Our chats last week inspired us to blog a bit, discuss some basics, and spend some internet column space on the importance of brand standards.
Why Does Brand Matter?
Have you ever noticed how the strongest brands and brand standards help organizations and humans find their way more easily toward trust and engagement? Branding should build the following three things:
- Trust
- Clarity
- Identity
Your brand is your identity but also your story. Studies, including this historical retrospective published in 2015, show that brand and personification are related. So, from color palettes to photography, voice, and intended audience MSU wants you to know who they are as an organization. They also want you to see them as a complex system made up of a number of independently and collaboratively functioning units that both stand alone and rely upon each other.
When you encounter a site that follows the MSU brand guidelines, you can trust that you’re on a site that is associated with MSU because it is clear that the identity of the design is MSU-centric. The site and unit’s function may be different, but knowing that the trusted MSU umbrella connects all of the pieces brings comfort to the individual navigating the page that they can trust what the content says because it is a part of a known identity.
Going back to the inspiration that brought us here, imagine navigating to an MSU department website that adopted a different approach to the color palette and wordmark style. If the site used blue and yellow as accent colors, would you know where you were? You might get confused thinking you were looking at another organization’s offerings. What if they were asking you to make a donation? What if they were persuading you to enroll in a course with the promise of boosting your career? Think about the cognitive power it would take to make those decisions compared to if the brand colors and story were consistent. It’s significantly higher, which is likely to lose your readers, or confuse them into calling or emailing you for help.
How Does Brand Tell Your Story?
Once upon a time there was an organization that had narratives that weren’t cohesive and their customers could not figure out how to obtain their services. The characters were different from page to page, and none of their visitors could figure out who could help them, or with what. Then, one day, a heroine in shining armor rode into the organizational kingdom on a unicorn and cast a spell on each of the places on their website where their brand mismatched, and was saying something different to their customers than what they thought it was saying. Order was restored and the whole organization rejoiced.
Ok, so it’s not always as simple as that, but just like with books and television shows, cohesion is important. It’s confusing when a character we know and love does something that we don’t think they would normally do. Think about the uproar when someone accidentally left a Starbucks cup in the scene of a critical Game of Thrones episode. It’s hard to wonder if the Night King is truly dead and gone while also wondering where Daenerys Targaryen found the time to stop for a macchiato on the way to prepare her dragons for battle. Did she grab a mocha for Arya Stark as well? We’ll never know. But, unless you want an uproar from your customers and fans, it’s important to keep your story consistent, and make sure your organization says what it means, and means what it says. That’s what helps people identify with your brand and story. That’s what builds loyalty. When I say “GO GREEN” what do you say? Almost certainly not “GO YELLOW!”
How Can Gravity Works Help?
Brand standards go deeper than just colors, and they should. Whether it’s making sure the photographs on your website represent who you are, or the colors and design elements you choose help bolster the story of how your services can help someone else or make the world better, we want to chat with you. We can help you ensure that your department or program website is aligned to the overall MSU brand in ways that both set you apart and draw you into the experience as a whole. We can offer user experience and web design suggestions that will help tell your story while invoking the feelings of loyalty and pride a Spartan alumnus feels as they sing “thy praises MSU” on a crisp fall day. We’ll help you imagine and help you relate. Let’s take a look at what the new brand makes possible — let’s get to work.
View the updated Michigan State University branding site, proclaiming MSU as a place with “the will to make a difference. To lift up. To look forward.” Gravity Works has a long history of working with MSU departments, and given the newly updated MSU brand, we want to offer help as you refresh your existing university sites so that your story is trustworthy, clear, and identifiable.
