"If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you do not know what you are doing"
— W. Edwards Demin quoted by D. La Piana in The nonprofit strategy revolution
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
"This last point cannot be overstated: Building consensus is essential to the success of the branding process. Everyone with stake in the brand—your board members, staff, funders, constituents, consultants, opinion-shapers—should feel that his or her views and concerns are captured in the design brief"
— DK Holland in Branding for Nonprofits — Developing Identity with Integrity
"When confronted with restoring reputation, leaders need to be alert to small and large business shifts that can impact their future. If these changes are relevant—and they often are—reputation restoration should occur within the context of these seismic shifts"
— L. Gaines-Ross in Corporate Reputation — 12 steps to Safeguarding and Recovering Reputation
"Any business, in any corner of the world, must create an experience to engage its employees before it can expect those employees to deliver the brand to customers. The key to employer brand is tapping the emotional essence of the company and its brand and using that emotional essence to frame and articulate the employee experience"
— L. Sartain and M. Schumann in Brand from The Inside — Eight Essentials to Emotionally Connect Your Employees to Your Business
"Metaphorically, the development of a brand in the customer’s mind is similar to piecing together a jigsaw puzzle. A single brand contact, whether an ad, an anecdote, or personal experience from service encounters, represents one piece of the puzzle. Over time a customer collects more brand contacts, i.e. pieces of the jigsaw puzzle, and gradually, the puzzle takes form. Once there are enough pieces, the customer may start to comprehend the picture of which the jigsaw puzzle is about"
— T. Moilanen and S. Rainisto in How to Brand Nations, Cities and Destinations — A planning book for place branding
"Brands need to concentrate on creating consistent feelings rather than worry about the consistency of their logos. That’s now a given. A brand isn’t a logo, it’s the feeling you deliver through the interaction."
— J. Lyle in The Blaggers Guide to Branding
Citydev.brussels is one of the best known organisations in the Brussels Real Estate world that focuses on economic expansion.
The mission consists to support economic development and employment in the Brussels-Capital Region.
The activities are concentrated on infrastructure for accommodating companies, especially scientific and industrial parks and buildings for companies.
Citydev.brussels has entrusted Page in extremis with the tasks of designing, writing, and producing an informational and promotional brochure based on their new visual identity.
During the development process, the Belgian communication agency has applied the tools of the “Design Thinking’s” discipline.
Page in extremis had already contributed to the succesfull rebranding’s story of Citydev.brussels with the refreshment of the name and identity of the Brussels’ institution.
Page in extremis is a strategic design communication agency, involving an experimented multidisciplinary team, building brands and strengthening reputations for leading corporations, institutions and associations.
Located in Brussels, the communication agency is specialised in corporate and institutional communication and helps differentiate your brand from the multitude.
More information: http://www.inextremis.be
"Environmental analysis (sometimes referred to as “environmental scanning”) is the analysis of factors in the larger competitive context that are currently affecting or may in future influence the nature of competition within an industry"
— J. D. Harris and M. J. Lenox in The Strategist’s Toolkit
"The key to success in brand communications is to develop a strategy with specific objectives and ensure that key messages are developed and applied consistently across all communications channels. The key messages are derived from the brand vision and positioning; the look, feel, tone and manner of how these are communicated, are driven by the personality traits"
— P. Temporal in Branding for the Public Sector — Creating, building and managing brands people will value
"Stakeholder analysis is a framework for understanding the key individuals groups, or organisations that can significantly affect (or be affected by) the activities of the firm. A focus on stakeholder interest clarifies what kind of value each stakeholder is looking for"
— J. D. Harris and M. J. Lenox in The Strategist’s Toolkit
"Certainly there is a strong need for any public sector brand to develop a robust online brand communications strategy, which has to be capable of working on a 24-7-365 basis"
— P. Temporal in Branding for the Public Sector — Creating, building and managing brands people will value
"Differentiating a brand in terms of functional benefits is attractive because such benefits are relatively concrete and, thus, can be communicated to consumers and trade partners simply and clearly"
— A. M. Tybout and Tim Calkins in Kellogg on Branding
"The terms brand value and brand equity are often used as synonyms, but that is not correct. Brand value only describes the financial value of a brand. This financial value has different causes. The brand equity is only one of these causes"
— M. Burger in Brand Equity and Brand Value — Explanation and Measurement
"Designers who conduct research provide themselves several important advantages over those who don’t. Not only are they apt to develop more insightful design solutions by aligning business goals and audience needs, they also provide their clients a competitive advantage (…) Research provides (…) A rationale for design decisions, A basis for measurement"
— D. Holston in The Startegic Designer - Tools and techniques for managing the design process
