The word "brand" gets tossed around a lot in business these days. Yet, it's likely if you asked five people what "brand" means, you would get different answers. The meaning is difficult to describe, because a brand is more than a company's logo, advertising or collateral materials.
A brand is both an organization's identity and its promise. A brand consists of those differentiating benefits that an organization's constituents believe it can offer, as well as those characteristics and values that constituents believe the organization possesses. Notice the word "believe" in the previous sentence. An organization's brand identity is as much about perception as it is about tangible deliverables. A chief brand attribute of Volvo, for example, may be the safety of its automobiles. While Volvo may have substantial manufacturing and testing data to support its claim of safety, this brand attribute only gains credibility and power once key constituents and influencers believe it.
Making the Message Clear
Every organization has a brand position in the marketplace whether or not it actively manages the brand image. Most organizations that recognize the value of a well-articulated and clearly staked-out brand position proactively manage their brands. According to Paul Stewart, co-author of Branded Customer Service: The New Competitive Edge, "The strongest brands tend to be the ones with the most consistent and clearest messages."
For this reason and others, see see eye believes it's important to ensure that any graphic representation of your organization's brand – a logo, collateral, Web site or other graphic communications – be consistently delivered and focused along the same core messages and values. By doing so, constituents are more likely to remember key messages and brand attributes, and will more easily be able to distinguish your competitive advantages from your organization's peers.
Achieving consistency and clarity are the goals behind our work on logo/identity programs. We provide our clients with the tools they need (such as identity standards manuals and digital asset management programs) to ensure their identity usage can maintain these objectives across a wide range of users and graphic needs.
Why an Identity Standards Manual?
An identity standards manual provides simple guidelines to ensure that the identity is applied consistently and with design integrity on a wide range of items – from letterhead and collateral, to signage and advertising. The graphic standards manual provides a single authoritative resource for information and guidelines that is particularly helpful for clients who work with a wide range of vendors or partners. Formally documenting identity and graphic guidelines communicates the company's commitment to consistently representing its brand.
Organizations such as Atlanta-based Oglethorpe University, Georgia Shakespeare (for whom we designed a new identity), and Chattanooga-based CBL & Associates Properties understand the importance of consistent graphic representation of their organizations. They hired see see eye to create standards such as logo clearance, tagline usage, font usage, color palettes, prohibited logo use, logo relationship with other logos, and stationery standards.
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