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How toDevelop& Enforce
Brand Management Guide for Fortune 500 & SMBs
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: WebDAM provides the leading platform
for brand management and sharing brand assets ⎯ such as images, logos, graphics, brand guidelines, docs,
presentations, videos, and more.
1730 S. Amphlett Blvd Ste 320 1.877.408.4888San Mateo, CA 94402 [email protected] www.webdamsolutions.com
In order to stay competitive in the digital world, your organization
must have a successful brand reputation. Follow these best practices
to develop and enforce brand guidelines that stick.
Brand Guidelines
2014 Enterprise Edition
1730 S. Amphlett Blvd Ste 320 1.877.408.4888San Mateo, CA 94402 [email protected] www.webdamsolutions.com
IntroductionA successful brand reputation can be one of your best assets for
achieving victory over your competition. For this reason, most
companies spend huge sums of money on brand strategy, brand
management, promotion, and creative work.
In order to succeed in the digital world, deploying and enforcing
brand standards is critical. The purpose of this guide is to help you
establish a successful application of your brand identity across your
organization and beyond. By following these steps, your enterprise
will become a Brand Without Boundaries™.
A brand is more than a logo, tagline, and color palette. A brand is a
living, breathing, and evolving feeling that resonates in all aspects of
your business. For example, think about the logo on your computer
right now. Immediately, your mind just induced certain images and
feelings around that company. Now ― what type of emotions and
images do you want evoked when your company is mentioned?
1. Develop a ConsensusTo succeed, there needs to be a consensus on defining
your brand. Start at the top. Schedule a series of quick
meetings with your CEO, CMO, Sales, Customer
Success Directors, and other key leaders. Get a
consensus and identify what clearly sets you apart
from others. Next identify the desired feelings around
your company and products. This is your brand.
99% of the time, these meetings are enjoyable for
everyone and spark great ideas. Next, permeate this
information in every brand activity at your
company. Start by developing or optimizing
brand guidelines at your organization.
First off, what is your brand?
1730 S. Amphlett Blvd Ste 320 1.877.408.4888San Mateo, CA 94402 [email protected] www.webdamsolutions.com
2. Deploy Brand Guidelines When creating or optimizing brand guidelines, ensure that the following is included:
Mission StatementDefines why you exist and the promise your company makes to your
audience. Keep it short and sweet. Don’t just sound nice. Your mission
statement should have an optimistic spin while communicating value,
inspiration, plausibility, and specificity.
Brand Purpose & Key MessagesDon’t just have a brand purpose, have a defining purpose. Purpose-
driven branding is essential to success. Key messages should be listed.
They should enable each employee to answer “Why are we here” in a
manner that connects to their audience. The most important
ingredient is credibility to your mission statement and representing key
differentiators. Show proof in data points and keep it simple. Be sure
to clearly represent your company’s tone and voice. Brands can be
“serious” to “playful”, “professional” to “fun”or “informal.”
Company Culture Brand your corporate culture. This will fuel and
mobilize your organization around your brand,
purpose, business strategy and the values your
organization stands for. It also creates a consistent
and team oriented approach to growing brand
equity. Educate your team on what your company
stands for. Design your office, tone, and activities to
represent it. Everyone should be a brand advocate.
TaglinesList all the approved taglines for your organization.
Even better, define where each one should be used.
1730 S. Amphlett Blvd Ste 320 1.877.408.4888San Mateo, CA 94402 [email protected] www.webdamsolutions.com
LogosProvide access to a clear set of company logos, product logos, and a
list of how they should be used and not used. For legal reasons, you
should write “TM” (unregistered trademark) or an “R” (registered
mark) next to your logos. You should include various file formats such
as jpeg, png with transparent backgrounds, illustrator, press-optimized
PDF, screen resolutions(72dpi, RGB) and press resolutions (300dpi,
CMYK).
You can make them public accessible or private. Some companies
provide both. You can provide a public facing online brand portal that
gives access to low resolution files. For access to high-res print
optimized files, require your audience to submit a request or sign in for
download access. Most companies use a Digital Asset Management
platform for this. You can have a customized Brand Portal for secured
or nonsecured download access, monitoring who is using what, and
have usage agreements and brand guidelines displayed during the
download process.
Digital Assets LibraryTo deliver your brand guidelines and branded files,
you should have an online library. It’s impossible to
grow a brand if your brand guidelines and files are
not readily accessible – anytime, anywhere. Most
branded assets need to be shared across internal
departments, contractors, partners, and the outside
media. To enforce, grow, and manage a brand
successfully, most enterprises deploy a digital assets
library, known in the industry as a digital asset
management platform (DAM). Your company’s
DAM should also display your brand guidelines.
The web interface itself should also adhere to your
own brand guidelines.
Color PaletteDefine your company’s approved color palette and
represent it visually and with the values for each
color. Provide the values for Print Colors, also
known as CMYK and Pantone. Provide the values
1730 S. Amphlett Blvd Ste 320 1.877.408.4888San Mateo, CA 94402 [email protected] www.webdamsolutions.com
for Web Colors, also known as RGB and Hexadecimal. Many people
don’t know the difference, so you should define what values should be
used for what.
TypographyMake sure your designers, partners, and team members maintain brand
consistency by using the correct fonts. Identify the typefaces. You can
also provide guidelines for typefaces for different mediums (video,
web, powerpoint, internal documents, etc.)
Examples of What Not to SayDefine all phrases, words, stories, and descriptions that should never
be used.
ImageryDefine what kind of photos should be used and what stylization
should be applied. We advise that should also display what types of
images should never be used, such as cheesy stock photography.
Usage Rights Policy Upon downloading branded files, force your
audience to agree to file usage terms and conditions.
Stating them clearly on your website is one method.
The best approach is to automatically pop up an
agreement form that people have to digitally sign in
order to complete the download. This forces your
audience to agree to the terms of the file. Most
digital asset management platforms provide this
capability.
1730 S. Amphlett Blvd Ste 320 1.877.408.4888San Mateo, CA 94402 [email protected] www.webdamsolutions.com
3. Enforce Brand Guidelines
With brand guidelines and a DAM in place, you can now
enforce your brand across your enterprise and outside
partners. However, there are still additional best
practices to consider.
Have Executives Review and Sign Off
Create an internal campaign that showcases your brand
guidelines and the location of all branded assets. First,
have all executives review your brand guidelines and sign
off on them. Next, send out internal communications
and direct access to your guidelines and DAM.
Foster Openness
Everything in business evolves including your brand.
Be open to change which could help your company
grow. Encourage your customers and employees to
provide feedback on your brand and test out new
approaches. Brand Guidelines are guidelines; they are
not etched in stone. Continuously evolve them as your
company evolves.
Distribute from a Central LocationThis is critical. Whether you’re using a DAM or
some custom home-grown solution, ensure that
access to branded assets and guidelines come from
one central location. To eliminate risk and brand
inconsistency, companies must ensure that
everyone is using the most current version and
Achieve Loyalty.
1730 S. Amphlett Blvd Ste 320 1.877.408.4888San Mateo, CA 94402 [email protected] www.webdamsolutions.com
correct files. Having one central repository for your branded files
provides a digital guardian within your company. This ensures that
only the approved assets are being used inside and outside your
organization, known as a digital asset management or brand
management platform.
Live Your Brand. Use your branded assets, tone, and guidelines at every opportunity within your organization. Most importantly, make them accessible. If your employees don’t live your brand, it won’t stick outside either. From your company parties, furniture, data sheets, color themes, to your company attire and keynotes — your brand should be everywhere.
Simultaneously, make it super easy for your employees, partners, media, and the public to understand and locate your brand assets. With today’s digital world, everyone wants to move fast.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: WebDAM provides the leading brand management
platform for managing, controlling, and sharing creative files ⎯ such as images, logos, brand guidelines,
graphics, docs, presentations, videos, and more.