Brand guidelines VS Creativity

The main reason brand guidelines exist is to keep consistency in check. Consistency is key, especially for brands that extend across multiple touch points. Imagine your favorite bottled water brand featuring volcanoes in a TV commercial but fairytale castles in print. Or Easyjet aircrafts painted in an apple green livery because it’s the new brand manager’s favorite color. At best you’d be confused. At worst the brand would go unnoticed, having missed out on an opportunity to refresh memory structures to get your attention. It is only through consistency that brands become familiar, trusted – and grow.

But to work effectively, brand guidelines don’t have to be a set of rigid rules and regulations. In fact they should allow for flexibility. Or else you might soon have to answer to stale, uninspired creative that locks your brand at idle.

A few years ago, McDonald’s bent the rules with a series of outdoors billboards featuring food pictures. No copy, no logo. Just close-ups of BigMacs and McFlurries. A bold move given McDonalds’ guidelines most probably don’t point out logos are optional.

Good brand guidelines manage to guard a brand from getting too far from its focus, all while giving it enough room for emotional engagement. Contact us today to see how we can help you design effective brand standards.