POINT: Paul Williams
Nice work, you’ve put together all of your core identity and branding information in one spot!
Now what?
Think of your Brand Style Guide tools as you would any on-going core program of your company. These are the same tactics you should use for your Style Guide.
- How do you roll it out?
- How do you reinforce the importance of it?
- How do you make it easy for new hires to get up to speed?
- How do you make it easy for people to find what they need to know?
- How do you build awareness of updates?
If you want people to use it, they’ve got to understand its importance and the information has to be easy to access.
When people don’t follow the guidelines properly, let them know.
For a while, in the early history of Starbucks, whenever the logo was to be used in a new or different way someone in Seattle needed to approve it first.
This prevented a lot of crummy logo executions and inappropriate branding from taking place. As we field marketers became more seasoned, pre-approvals were no longer necessary.
Although, from this photo I found on the interweb of external store signage at the Pico and South Robertson location in Los Angeles…
People will still do things that are inconsistent with your brand.
COUNTERPOINT: John Moore
We’ve explained its importance.
We’ve detailed its components.
We’ve expressed its rigidness.
So, if you’ve built it… it’s now time to follow it. ‘Nuff said.
