Communication Agency Brussels - Your Partner in Design and Brand

How to maintain consistency in your visual communication?

Consistency creates visibility and recognition. When you have defined your visual identity, it is essential to apply it consistently to all the touch point between your Brand and your various stakeholders.
Some hints can help you succeed in this task —For better performance, consider them as a whole method.

Succinctly, here are described the seven steps process for maintaining better consistency for your Brand:

Step 1: Alignment
Coherence in your visual identity is easier to manage when you have an internal and external alignment. Internally, your visual identity needs to be founded on your Brand values and your behaviours.
Externally, the alignment with your core idea, your positioning and the experience of your stakeholders must be exposed.

Step 2: Set guidelines
When a strong brand is aligned, a guiding set of rules is easier to define. The rules should not necessarily be unvarying: in our current world, they can be flexible or, even better, dynamic. However, the most significant concern is that the rules should be well determined and applied rigorously. You need to develop and share a central document that gathers all rules to use. This handbook is called a Brand guide.

Step 3: Name a Brand Guardian
A Brand guide is not sufficient. You need someone in your organisation that checks the consistency of every branded touch points before to diffuse them. This person is called a Brand Guardian.  Often, a member of the Communication Department plays this crucial role.

Step 4: Training
Ideally, the Brand Guardian must be helped in his task by the staff of your organisation. To arrive at this level of engagement, you need to communicate the fundamental of your Brand to every colleague. Then you need to explain your Brand rules and train them on how to use it. Therefore, you can use them all as Brand Ambassadors.

Step 5: Communicate
Communication is central to the process. You need to communicate the most significant pillars of your Brand to your main external stakeholders. This will help your partners to understand better the way you would like to be seen by them. Besides, why not, they can also become your Brand Ambassadors?

Step 6: Repeat
Don’t be afraid to replicate your main messages, images and visuals. Studies show that a person needs to be faced with a Brand at least six times before being able to memorise it. Internally, this could appear unpleasant but you can avoid the motionless feeling by developing flexibility in your visual expression.

Step 7: Refresh
Nowadays, the world is moving faster than ever. New technologies bring new ways to think and express your Brand. You need to update your visual identity on a regular basis. If you update the general look and feel of your brand at least each year, your Brand will not appear old fashioned and you will never be obliged to make radical modifications. We do not speak about your logo and the main pillars of your communication but the general visual environment of your brand.
Think about it: the institutional brand of the Grand Father does not connect anymore with anyone, except for the supporters of a bygone era.

Page in extremis turns brands into valuable assets and ensures the alignment with their strategic objectives.

The communication agency proposes four integrated communication services:


1) The definition of a “brand strategy” aligned with the development strategy of your organisation.

2) The creation or refreshment of your visual identity aligned with a new brand strategy and supported by easy to use guidelines developed in a clear and concise Brand guide.

3) The improvement of your “Communication Programme” by incorporating integrated communication campaigns, unforgettable events, excellent publications and innovative digital solutions.

4) The creative development and production of innovative printed and digital communication projects.

Interested in partnering with Page in extremis?

Based in Brussels, the communication agency makes associations brands conversational, helps organisations manage their communities, engage with their stakeholders and convey their messages.

For more information:
http://www.inextremis.be
http://www.inextremisbranding.be
http://www.inextremisdigital.be

Did you know that metallic objects, dating back more than 2,000 years, already contained nickel?

In the 19th century, nickel came to prominence in plating and alloys such as “nickel silver”.

Stainless steels were discovered early in the 20th century and nickel was found to have a very beneficial role in many of the standard grades, a situation which continues to this day.

Alloys based on nickel were found to have excellent corrosion resistance and high-temperature resistance, which made them suitable for chemical plants and also allowed the practical realisation of the jet engine.

As a result of these developments, nickel enjoyed a vigorous growth of demand in the 20th Century and remains to do so.

Nickel is highly recyclable and is an essential material for current and future technologies – making it a crucial element for European growth.

Some 688,000 jobs across Europe are directly and indirectly dependent on the nickel value chain.

Do you want to know more about Nickel, discover the “Life of Ni”, the newest publication of the Nickel Institute Europe.

The brochure results of a close collaboration between the communication team of Nickel Institute Europe and their agency partner for communication, Page in extremis.

Located in Brussels, the communication agency Page in extremis has extended experience in the translation of specific communication needs into powerfully communication tools.

We can help you reinforce your communication objectives.

Page in extremis is a conversation companion which can translate your communication needs into effective communication media.

Page in extremis offers you specialised services going from corporate and institutional branding to the development of digital and classic media.

More information: http://www.inextremis.be

How to guarantee consistency in your communication? 

Before to answer, it is important to understand why for an organisation is an asset to ensure consistency in its visual communication.

From the creativity point of view, this requirement may seem counterintuitive. Indeed, it seems justify to propose a panoply of creative visuals, and that demonstrate your dynamism and modernity. Besides, within an organisation, the feeling of lassitude can emerge from the regular usage of the same visuals.

However, at the opposite, it is essential to consider that your audience is never exposed in your visual identity like you are.
More than this, numerous studies show that your targeted audience must be confronted, at least, six times with the same visuals, before your message to be finally memorised.

Considering this, it makes sense that the consistent application of the same visuals reinforces the performance of your communication.
The question who arises is: “How to ensure the consistency of your communication?”

First, you need to define your essential messages carefully. Secondly, you must translate them into visuals. And then, you can consistently repeat the visuals on different communication channels in order to multiply your presence and the number of crossing with your audience.

To help you ensure the consistency on multiple channels, a very practical tool exists: the Brand Guide.

Essentially, a Brand Guide is a document that establishes specific guidelines on how the main aspects of an organisation brand to be handled. It sets rules for creating a unified and identifiable presence for your brand. A Brand Guide defines, describes, and presents samples of what your organisation and its main messages look like in various visual media and on the different communication channels.

The Brand Guide helps the staff to communicate the messages of their organisation adequately. It outlines the vision and mission. The Brand Guide fixes usual questions like: Who are you as an organisation? What are your main messages? What visuals are associated? How should the logo be used? What is the correct use of the organisation names?

Too few communication teams take the time to create a Brand Guide. In the absence, inconsistent content may be applied.

Interested in developing a Brand Guide for your organisation?

Located in Brussels, Page in extremis is a strategic communication agency.

Our multidisciplinary team can help you define the essential elements of a great Brand Strategy aligned with your organisation development objectives.

Page in extremis builds brands and strengthens the reputation of leading organisations, European associations and corporations.

For more information: http://www.inextremis.be and http://www.inextremisbranding.be

How organisations can create strong brand engagement?

It is a big mistake to think that only the corporate brands or product brands can develop an emotional connection with their public.

People can also grow an emotional attachment to the organisation brands. This is proved, for instance, by the large sympathy offered by a certain public to organisations like WWF.

When this connection occurs, it becomes in a real asset to the brand. In time could transform into a true feeling of loyalty between the person and the brand.
And with loyalty comes the necessary confidence which brings people’s attention when an organisation communicates.

The process of creating such powerful connection is called “Brand Engagement”.

Brand engagement is partly created by organisations and partly created by the perceptions of the audience with whom these organisations are communicating.

This requires an ongoing effort for the organisation to ensure that its staff understands perfectly what the brand is promising to its external audience.
All employees must be conscious that their actions and behaviors, on a day-to-day basis, could support or undermine this effort.

Every day, your team makes choices. They get up and choose to come to work. At work, they choose to connect or not. To engage or not…

A succesful brand management system envisages transforming a maximum of your staff into real brand ambassadors.
This is possible, only if you privilege a brand management approach based on listening, dialogue, and search of consensus.

Here are the best practices:
- Start with understanding the audiences
- Define which message is appropriate for each specific audience
- Favorise a feedback mechanism which offers a real dialogue
- Measure effectiveness and efficiency
- Encourage participation and collaboration.

Based in Brussels, the communication agency Page in extremis can help you set up a Brand Management System that will allow your communication team to maintain a high level of brand engagement within all your staff.

Page in extremis has over 21 years experience in guiding organisations on the road to define and articulate their uniqueness. The multidisciplinary communication agency team translates your organisation core idea into brilliant and adequate visual systems.

Page in extremis builds brands and strengthens the reputation of leading Organisations, European Associations and Corporations.

Source: http://www.inextremisbranding.be