Consistency. What is it? Is it important? Are you doing it
right? Be brave.
What is it? Consistency is and should be considered one
of the most important aspects of successful branding. Your brand consistency
should be like a stick of rock, wherever you cut into it reads the same company
message. That message isn’t just a colour, a logo, a type face or a
strapline…but also and some would say more importantly, tone of voice and how
you’re talking to people.
Is it important? Well yes, it’s hugely important.
Research has shown that brand consistency = familiarity, familiarity = trust,
trust = brand loyalty… and we all like that! Branding experts and industry
opinion leaders where questioned in a an Interbrand’s survey late January this
year. Here is the list of the top 10 aspects of successful branding, as
resulted from that study:
Consistency (36.0%) (see I told you so!)Understanding of
Customer/Target (18.2%)Message/Communication (14.7%)Creative/Design/Brand ID
(12.8%) Relevance (12.4%) Differentiation/Uniqueness (12.0%) Key
Stakeholder Buy-In (10.9%) Positioning (9.7%)Clarity (8.9%) Connection
to Customer/Target (8.9%)
Are you doing it right? Most importantly you just have
to be honest with yourself. Checking you’re doing it right by yourself is very
difficult. You live with your brand 24/7 and are likely to not notice certain
things because that’s the way they’ve always been. Getting an external
marketing expert to audit all you external and internal communications would be
a great start. They have the ability to have a non biased view to assess where
you are in terms of brand consistency and then put a platform in place as to
how to make it better.
Be brave. One of the most common mistakes a company can
make is to get fidgety brand fingers. As mentioned before if you’re living with
your brand 24/7 you will undoubtedly see your branding communications every
hour of the day. Many companies do not take into consideration that the
consumer (unless they’re stalking you) will only be involved with your brand
very occasionally.
Who does it well? Well there are lot’s of companies
doing it well…Here’s a few of my favourites:
Howies Boden Innocent Nike Apple
So, get your brand communications right… then sit back, be
brave and stick with it for a few years. Simple.
