Branding is the practice of using words, images, icons, and interactions with your audience in such a way as to communicate what your business is about. Entrepreneur.com defines branding as: The marketing practice of creating a name, symbol or design that identifies and differentiates a product from other products.

Think about a company like Coca-Cola. Their branding is the distinctive red and white, cursive font, fun loving music, and it’s always summertime in Coca-Cola land. As far as brand consistency goes, Coke has hit the nail on the head because you always know exactly what you’re going to get. But what on earth does consistent brand messaging actually mean, beyond showing up every day in the same way? In this blog we are going to touch on what brand consistency is and talk about why it’s critical, as well as take a look how the importance of consistency in branding evolved.

If you own a business and are looking for a brand design agency to help you with branding, contact us today at Oath Creative. We work with you to deliver a strong identity that speaks to the heart of what your business is about.

What is brand consistency?

The words ‘brand consistency’ are bandied about a bit, but we want to take the time to identify what brand consistency means, exactly. In our own words, we think that brand consistency is:

Delivering the same message to your customers no matter what type of platform you’re using, and ensuring that your tone of voice, imaging, and style are conveyed seamlessly every time.

After all, we humans are creatures of habit. We like knowing what to expect and we like what is familiar to us.

When a brand uses the same fonts, style, colours, music, layout, setting, tone of voice, and creates the same visual experience we know what we are getting when we perceive this formation of variables.

Put simply, the reason why McDonalds is so successful is precisely because of its comforting familiarity. You always know what you’re going to get when you bite into a McDonalds french fry, and you know what the golden arches mean.

Brand consistency is the art of creating an experientially comforting experience so that your users and customers develop familiarity with your brand.

Next we’re going to touch on why brand consistency is so important.

The importance of consistency in branding

You are in business to sell. And it has been proven time and time again that consumers are far more likely to purchase products from a company or brand that they recognise and feel comfortable with. So with that in mind, it’s critical for you to begin to establish your business brand as soon as possible, if you haven’t already. What does this look like?

• Develop or hone brand identity design, including a logo, style, font, colours, and imagery
• Implement branding guidelines for use of your logo and brand name to ensure that no matter what, your brand appears in the same way at all times everywhere it is used
• Engage in training with your team to ensure that your brand ethos is disseminated throughout sales calls and in every interaction with your customers – after all, brand is all about your people as much as it is about your visual and sensory experience

Once you have got the ball rolling you need to ensure that you keep up the momentum.

How to focus on maintaining brand consistency

You have invested in a brand for your business and are committed to keeping your messaging consistent. But how do you ensure that everyone in your business stays true to this?

• Training is key, as is constant revisiting of all material to ensure that logo and style remain consistent with your guidelines.
• Look at examples of leaders in your industry. How do they ensure their brand is consistent no matter what?
• Use innovation to stay fresh and ensure that even though you are being consistent you are not getting stale.

Visual brand consistency

A final point we’ll touch on here is the importance of visual brand consistency across multiple mediums. After all, today’s brands aren’t taking out a newpaper ad or running a TV spot – they are engaging in multiple social media campaigns, investing in GoogleAds, working with influencers, creating live content and investing in their audience and creating a community to build their brand. So how on earth do you ensure your messaging is consistent across so many mediums?

It all comes down to having a really strong core message at the heart of your brand and making sure that its strength permeates your entire ethos. If you’re creating YouTube content and your message is corporate with a touch of humour, then make sure that your entire script keeps checking in with that message. If you’re a visual brand, make sure your style guidelines encompass every type of media possible, from TikTok through to Twitter.

Social media brand consistency is one of the hardest things to master given the sheer scale and size of the platforms (not to mention the number of posts brands do) but if you do stick to your guidelines you’ll find that you reap the rewards of familiarity and trust.

Contact us today for help with your branding. We are here to cut through the noise and deliver a strong message that allows you to reach your users no matter where they are.