Is Your Brand Slowing You Down?

A solid brand adds value to a company’s products and services. An established brand helps overcome customer uncertainty in the early stages of consideration.  A large, tightly managed brand can also create challenges. Poor brand execution can slow your business and create missed opportunities! First of all, a brand is formed in the customer’s mind by his or her experience with your product and people more than anything else, regardless of your efforts to define it otherwise.

The visual aspect of a company’s brand is only one component of the equation, but maybe one where the most effort is spent. This could be because it is easier to control words, images and layouts than all the other things that affect a customer’s perception. Visual consistency is important because it conveys a message about quality as well as helping customers see a range of possible solutions in the case of very large companies. How that consistency is achieved is where an advantage can be found.I have experienced brand management 3 different ways at different companies. In one, I was responsible for the brand. In another, I was subject to the brand and in a third company, the brand (seemingly) took care of itself.When I was responsible for the brand, we had some clearly defined templates and these worked well, but there was frequently discussion about what variation was permissible or even that none of the templates would allow product managers to communicate what was needed (I disagree). This added a small but manageable amount of friction to the marcom process. (Product managers may have seen it differently).At another company, every project was submitted to a review team for approval. Reviews scoured projects to a level of visual detail that was beyond what I believe a typical customer is even aware of. This takes time and has a cost in terms of speed to market. I almost certainly has a cost in terms of compliance and teamwork.The best approach, in my mind, is the one where guidelines are established and those responsible for the brand are active in educating contributors on best practices on a regular basis.  Team members appreciated being treated like adults and responded positively to this sort of guidance. With a solid playbook in hand and some reasonable amount of flexibility, a marketing team could create assets that help bring products to market quickly without slowing down projects to fix small variances that do no harm. What are your thoughts? Please share them in a comment.