— DK Holland in Branding for Nonprofits — Developing Identity with Integrity
— I. Motee in 60 minute brand strategist — The Essential Brand Book for Marketing Professionals
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
— DK Holland in Branding for Nonprofits — Developing Identity with Integrity
How to avoid the conformity trap in Branding?
Branding is sometimes considered as an exercise of differentiation.
Of course, we know that branding is much more. The path of the brand recognition passes through the differentiation and, even more through uniqueness!
Today, unfortunately, we seen a lot of organisations who endeavour to display their band as unique, but, in fact, falling into the sea of sameness.
The vast majority of organisations find themselves using values and visual expressions similar to other in their sector.
At the same time, focusing on the organisation’s uniqueness raises a great risk: the production of unrealistic and narcissistic perceptions within the organisation.
To avoid being caught between two stools, it is always important to remember that it is not what the organisation says it is doing, but it is what the organisation truly does, that generates that desired differentiation and uniqueness.
Aside answering questions like: “who are we as an organisation?” and “what we are standing for”, it is central to ask “what are the characteristics of our relationship with all our stakeholders?” and “what our stakeholders do expect from our organisation?”.
The challenge in avoiding the conformity trap is keeping an eye on the dynamic relation between the brand essence and the brand relationships.
A brand best protection against conformity is to develop nurturing a great interaction with its environment.
Based in Brussels, the communication agency Page in extremis can help you define the essence of your brand and formulate its differences in a very positive relationship with its environment and all its stakeholders.
Page in extremis has over 21 years experience in guiding organisations on the road to defining and articulating 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.
For more information: www.inextremis.be and www.inextremisbranding.be
— T. Blackett in Brands and Branding, The Economist.
— P. Hitchens and J. Hitchens in Successful Brand Management
Interested in the ingredients of a great Brand Strategy?
Navigating on the high seas without a compass and a map would be foolhardy.
It is exactly the same in what regards a communication programme!
If you do not want to reinvent the wheel with each new communication activity, you need to have a clear idea of “What your organisation is?“ and "What it stands for?”.
Actually, before even starting your communication programme, you need to compile a Brand Strategy, as a central document that gathers all the important strategic elements of your Brand expression.
First you need to create a strong Brand Strategy, then express it, train your staff and, finally, execute it consistently in communication programme framework.
The development of your Brand Strategy is a big opportunity to assure that every stakeholder connected with your communication activities is on the same page and speaks with the same voice.
Moreover, the strategic document regrouping the essential of your Brand Strategy will play a double role during the implementation of your communication programme:
- One: check that you develop every communication tool in alignment with your development strategy and your communication strategy,
- Two: avoid dissipating with an excess of creativity your important messages.
If your message is different every time your targeted audience see it, then you are always starting from zero with them!
A strong Brand Strategy enables to do more with less: rather than wasting time on expensive and inefficient activities.
Your focus should be the repetition of your communication messages, which in time assures a greatest and deeper impact on your audiences.
Moreover, each of your communication activity will reinforce each other through a logical and clever timeline.
Interested to know the ingredients that form a great Brand Strategy?
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 increases the reputations of leading institutions, European associations and international corporations.
For more information: 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
— R. Clifton in Brands and Branding (The Economist)
Seldia is the European Direct Selling Association. The objective of Seldia is to represent all forms of direct selling in Europe and to ensure that EU and national policy makers are aware of its benefits and advantages, as well as its contribution to national economies.
Seldia published its new Annual Report in conjunction with the Direct Selling Conference, a must-attend event on the annual direct selling calendar.
For more information on the industry’s performance and Seldia activities during the period 2014 - 2015 you can download the Annual Report on the Seldia website.
For the fifth year consecutively, Seldia has entrusted Page in extremis with the visual design and production of its annual report. Page in extremis has revitalized the association’s communication through its rebranding in 2010.
Page in extremis is a communication agency that helps create and develop each of your publications as an appendage of larger strategic communication plans.
The Communication agency builds brands and strengthens the reputation of leading corporations, institutions and associations.
Page in extremis is based in Brussels and has an expertise in institutional and corporate communication. The multidisciplinary team can help you define and translate the core-idea of your organisation into brilliant visual systems.
Source: http://www.inextremis.be
— C. Kaputa in Breakthrough Branding — How smart entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs transform a small idea into a big brand
— E. R. Abbing in Brand-Driven Innovation — Startegies for development and design
Page in extremis, the Belgian communication agency, specialised in branding, has strengthened the visual identity of CER, The Voice of European Railways.
CER’s role is to represent the interests of its members on the EU policy-making scene, in particular to support an improved business and regulatory environment for European railway operators and railway infrastructure companies.
CER members represent:
73 % of the European rail network length,
80 % of the European rail freight business,
96 % of rail passenger operations in Europe.
Page in extremis is specialised in corporate and institutional communication. The communication agency build strong corporate and institutional brands and help you refresh, with great success, your existing identity programme.
Branding is a complex, multifaceted, and multi-disciplinary process.
Page in extremis speaks about communication strategy, value, core-idea, brand architecture, baseline, and all that elements that creates a consistant visual identity system.
Source: http://www.inextremis.be
The Small Farmers, Big Business Partnership has just renewed its logo.
Based on a shared vision and complementary expertise for sustainable approaches to poverty alleviation and food and nutrition insecurity, COLEACP, GIZ, SNV and UNIDO decided to establish the Small Farmers Big Business Partnership in 2012, with the aim to implement a joint approach that will more effectively tackle the barriers to inclusive agribusiness and growth in the developing world.
Sustainable and inclusive agricultural value chains are essential to food and nutrition security, resilience, poverty alleviation and economic green growth.
For this, there is a need to re-think relationships between stakeholders along supply chains in order to ensure a world that can feed itself.
The Small Farmers Big Business Partnership’s common vision is that sustainable development must go hand in hand with the engagement of the private sector: encouraging Public/Private Partnerships in smallholder agricultural development and raising the capacities of private entrepreneurs, including commercial and smallholder farmers, to meet the increasingly complex requirements of domestic, regional, and international markets.
The Communication agency, Page in extremis, Brussels-based, is proud to contribute to this succesfull story with the creation and development of the new logo “The Small Farmers, Big Business" Partnership.
Programme branding is a complex, multifaceted, and multi-disciplinary process.
Page in extremis speaks about communication strategy, value, core-idea, brand architecture, baseline, and all that elements that creates a visual identity system.
Page in extremis is a communication agency specialised in corporate and institutional communication which handle successfully technical and complex information projected through a clear central idea of what the organisation is and what its aims are.
More information: http://www.inextremis.be
COLEACP (Europe-Africa-Caribbean-Pacific Liaison Committee)
GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit)
SNV (SNV Netherlands Development Organisation)
UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organization)
This is the blog of Page in extremis, an independant Communication Agency based in Brussels.
Discover our website www.inextremis.be
Page in extremis is a trusted communications partner for global organisations, and European institutions and associations.
With over 25 years of experience in brand development and design, we know how the world of European public affairs differs from mainstream corporate communications.
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