Consistency is a key to building a strong brand – this is a statement often mentioned in web conferences, webinars, blogs. If you have been wondering what is the answer to the question – How to build a strong and consistent brand – the crucial word is – trust.
Without establishing trust, building relationships between a brand and its consumers, there will be no sales either. To establish trust the following is needed:
- To trust a brand and the company, people need to feel a close connection to it and understanding,
- To really understand the brand, consumers have to be aware of the brand, to recognize it and remember,
- To recognize and remember the brand, it is essential for the brand to present itself in a persistent manner to its target audience, and all other consumers.
Working on consistency, visual and over brand identity, is very challenging. Brand consistency requires continuity in everything related to marketing promotion, starting with tiny graphic elements, each public message, to campaigns that take months to be prepared.
What does brand consistency require?
It assumes maintaining communication abilities, communication channels, marketing promotion, as well as firm positions synchronized with main brand elements that make its identity for this purpose. We have written a blog post about key elements for creating a brand identity. Also, to understand what consistency means, first, you have to understand the importance of building a brand for your business, as it presents the basis for the brand, and then on the next level, comes consistency.
The following elements are vital for building a strong brand:
- General brand tone and voice used in everyday communication,
- Graphic elements that are a substantial part of a brand identity,
- Usage of slogans,
- Implementing company values into campaigns and everyday activities.
Work on emphasizing these elements in everyday communication, the brand will be stronger and consistent. Let’s imagine a company positioning itself on the market, via different types of campaigns. At one point, it addresses the consumers in an informal way, the tone is fun and relaxed. Then it changes the approach and adopts a more formal way of addressing the audience. If these variations happen too often, the communication process will break, the target audience will be confused and the final result is a complete lack of understanding of the brand and its essence.
Communication is not the only problem that could pop up, it is also about the visual identity, damaged by frequent changes, experimenting with different color palettes, etc.
What are the benefits of brand consistency?
Modern and well-thought brand strategy, as the general brand development process, based on the idea the brand should be strong and consistent on the market, will bring success to the company and great long-term results. It especially applies to competitiveness and relationships built with various target groups. Besides these, there are other benefits following in the text below.
Helping brands to stand out of the competition
Some niches have very sharp competition so logically it takes more effort to fight for the trust and attention of consumers. For this reason, it is essential to build a strong brand identity, maintain the communication volume with the target audience on a consistent level. If a brand manages to keep consistency, there is a high probability for growth, which is a result of general recognition.
- Brand should always be current and relevant
- Thanks to their authority, the companies managed to associate the brand names with products
- When a consumer asks for a specific product and can visualize it immediately
Increases brand authority
It is not an easy process for a brand to become an authority on a market. To achieve that, it should always stay current and relevant when it comes to keeping a high-level authority for its consumers.
Some companies managed to bond a brand’s name to products and hence create an image. A great example of this is Hansaplast. This is how the highest-level authority looks when a consumer asks for a specific product and is able to visualize it immediately.
- Consistency in maintaining the highest quality that brings the quality confirmation, and loyalty
Builds loyalty between consumers and a brand
Consumers get attracted to brands they can identify with. This is only possible if a brand strategy is based on consistency. Consumers are after quality, and when they discover it in a brand, they ask for long-term quality confirmation. It is the consistency in maintaining the highest quality that brings the quality confirmation, and loyalty all the companies aim for.
- Strategic planning consists of several phases and exact steps.
- Understanding the meaning of a brand
- Defining the steps
- Creating consistent messages
- Creating a positive public image
How do you build brand consistency?
Brand consistency requires strategic planning consisting of several phases and exact steps. If they are followed, they bring amazing results in achieving consistency and stability. These are the most important steps for achieving expected results.
- Understanding the meaning of a brand – first, it is important to understand the meaning and purpose of a brand, because only when we understand the essence we can work on building consistency,
- Defining the steps – it is significant for a brand to always follow a certain path in its communication strategy. Consistency and standardization are tightly connected, so it is needed to build a set of rules and stick to them,
- Creating a positive public image – brand consistency depends on the positive attitude and the approach to any topic; so the consumers expect the brand to always be on the highest level so the company stays away from certain topics and trends.
- Amazing campaigns fitting great in target audience lifestyle
- High brand visibility
- The campaign still attracts the attention of the consumers and is always in their focus, omnipresent, and keeps the ideas, values, and identity in focus
Heineken beer as an example
Heineken beer is famous for its connection to lifestyle events, they are always present and sponsor big events like sports events, etc. they have identified such events as important for their brand so they sponsor these events on a regular basis. This is a great example of the power of consistency where a brand recognizes important events and sponsors them for years.
Creative campaigns fit in well with a lifestyle of a target audience, on the other hand, they clearly manage to pass the main messages of their brand. The company uses a cool approach to make the brand strategy popular and have high brand visibility. Graphic elements and experimenting with them are used for attracting attention and creating a visually appealing look that fits the lifestyle of young people.
Do you have a strong and consistent brand?
Investing in consistency allows a company to draw the attention of the consumers, stay in their focus, be omnipresent, while simultaneously their ideas, values, and identity they keep in the very center of everything. This approach is important to attract the attention of a target audience and so they can recognize the brand.
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