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What Are Branding Guidelines?
Ever wondered how some companies have logos, content, or social media channels that leave a strong impact? When you think of brands like Apple, Nike, Audi, or Coca-Cola, don’t you immediately associate them with their logos?
Brand guidelines are a huge must-have in the crowded and competitive business world we live in. To stand out, companies constantly need to come up with fresh ideas to engage their target audience. After all, people fall in love with a brand more than the products or services offered. Brand guidelines are a set of rules that designers and marketers follow to maintain a cohesive and uniform image of the brand itself. These include the logo, tagline, or brand message.
When a company begins its branding exercise, it comes up with a carefully defined set of guidelines to define how images and content should be created so that they connect with the brand’s overall theme and character.
Writers, designers, and even web developers use these guidelines to work on the brand’s marketing.
What Do Brand Guidelines Include?
Typically speaking, a set of branding guidelines includes the following features
Color Palette: The guidelines specify the exact color codes that are used to create the brand’s logo. To maintain a sense of cohesiveness and build brand recall among prospects and clients, the same colors are used across all major marketing materials. They include brochures, pamphlets, or digital posters that the brand creates for marketing needs.
Typography: The guidelines contain a list of (or even a single) font, as well as the typeface or family of fonts associated with the brand.
Logo: Designers usually create various versions of the brand’s logo to be used across marketing materials.
In addition to the above, branding guidelines may also include specific references to symbols, emojis, graphic elements, wordmarks, or a brand tonality.
Why Are Branding Guidelines Important?
Brand guidelines are very critical to a brand – they help in effectively leaving an impression on the target audience for the following reasons:
Visual Uniformity & Consistency
One of the primary reasons for sticking to a brand’s guidelines is to ensure consistency. Picture this – what if Mcdonald’s didn’t use the same yellow “M” symbol across their packaging material or billboards? What if they used a different font or a slightly different color? Wouldn’t it be confusing for people? However, since they are so consistent with their brand guidelines, they have managed to gain a large retained consumer population.
Consistency helps to create a powerful brand image. Instead of inhibiting creativity, it allows designers and marketers to understand the set benchmark. Having branding guidelines in place also avoids confusion there’s no way you can mistake a McD for a KFC, because their brand guidelines are so strictly in place, and etched deep into consumers’ minds.
Value Creation
The ultimate output of a brand should be value creation. Brands generate value in the market and based on their users and subscribers, this value grows. One of the easiest ways to build value is by ensuring the brand image remains intact. This means that everyone, not just designers and marketers but also users, should understand what value your brand has, and how to use it. Branding guidelines help associate a sense of integrity and quality to the overall brand image.
For example, think of owning running shoes from Nike versus an off-brand. Which pair would you take care of more and why? Does the response have something to do with the brand value?
Outlining Ethos
Brand guidelines help people understand brand ethics and values. This applies to people who work for the brand as well as external customers and prospects. Guidelines are a great way to reflect how the brand deals with customers, innovation, the environment, leadership, and governance. This helps set a clear understanding in place and makes the business unique.
Building Relationships
Brand guidelines are a great way to build relationships – they help demonstrate the bond between the company and its stakeholders. To create relationships with affiliates and referrals, it helps to hand over the brand guidelines for a correct representation of the brand.
Developing Market Perception
Market perception refers to the image that people have of the brand in the market. Each time your brand communicates with prospects, customers, employees, suppliers and vendors, investors, or the community at large, it should do so in a consistent manner.
What Should Your Branding Guidelines Include?
There are a variety of forms that branding guidelines can take. If you’re wondering how you can create your branding ethics, here are 5 essentials –
Mission & Vision: What are your brand’s mission and vision statement? These are not just sentences but objectives behind which the brand stands. Ensure that the mission and vision statements are distinct, relevant, and consistent.
Core Values: What are the principles that your brand has been built upon? Enlist these as the brand’s core values. Take a look at any brand – from Range Rover to Netflix – each brand has its own set of core values that it stands by, and has created a culture based on them.
Logo & Typography: Create versions of the logo and typography to depict how these elements will look on your social media channels, website, and other marketing materials.
Color Palette: Put together a color palette with specific color codes of all the colors your brand’s marketing materials can be created using. You don’t have to stick to the colors in the logo; you can go beyond.
Visuals: Create a mood board or put together specific images that your brand resonates with. These images can be used as part of marketing materials, and to help communicate the brand story better to customers and employees.
Conclusion
Branding guidelines are a great way to help a brand both play by the rules and express creativity beyond them. They help keep the brand’s image consistent. If you’re headed in the direction of creating a powerful brand that has a strong voice, make sure you have competent brand guidelines in place. To create brand guidelines, you will need a strategic marketing team in place who can help you put these together.