10 Reasons Why You Don’t Have Brand Consistency

What’s the deal with branding?

1. A Journalist couldn’t find the correct assets they needed.

Journalists have a tight window to meet a deadline and it’s in your best interest to cooperate with them as much as you can. Making it difficult for them to find a .png of your logo or product image does not help them. In turn, they find whatever works for them [google images] and that isn’t always your best foot forward.

2. You have said this before “We’ve got the Hex value….just match it to the closest Pantone.”

Seriously? You think by looking at the Hex, you’ll be able to pick the correct Pantone value out of thousands of options to chose from? That’s like bringing a glass of milk to the grocery store and picking which brand it is.

3. It takes 6-8 months to finish replacing the old logo with the new one after a rebrand.

A rebrand is really tough. Often the lead designer or creative director must now police everyone to make sure everyone, including neighboring departments, are using the correct assets. Must it be that hard?

4. Your current logo is labeled “Logo_final_4” in DropBox.

What’s the difference between that file and “Logo_V2?"Even Drew Houston of DropBox commented on his Y Combinator application [at very bottom] in 2007 how ridiculous the names were for files. How much time do you think someone will spend before they settle for an asset that’s good enough?

5. The designer you hired to do your logos only gave you limited files in that final zip.

Most designers will tell you they send over a complete zip of all the assets in both png/jpg versions, but most importantly, the source files in both RGB/CMYK color spaces. However, the unfortunate truth is a lot of our clients at Brandisty have come to us with zip files that were very incomplete and we often convert it for them.

6. 2 Brand Guides 1 Problem

The one time you actually need the brand guide, you were able to dig deep in your saved emails and find it. Now, is this the most recent one?

7. You rely on an agency to resize your assets.

Ok, what happens when your point of contact at the agency is out for the day? Now you must find someone there who must then find your company’s assets, resize them, then send them to you so you can email them to whomever you’re working with.

8. The .png version on your press page is the wrong size they need. Hello pixelation!

The journalist can fit a 250 x 250 image of your logo into the post, but you have a 500 x 500 size image. Do you think they will get that changed? (Not likely!)

9. You play brand pong.

Let’s say the journalist has some time to spare and reaches out to you to get the correct asset. They send you an email request, and then you send them back .jpg of your logo but they need it with a transparent background that fits a 30px by 30px box. Now you go back and forth via email trying to send them the correct file they need.

10. Your logos are different across social media outlets.

Outside of a your website, this is part of your brand people will see most. Why are you using an icon for your twitter picture and a full logo for your Facebook profile picture but using a different mark on LinkedIn? Its confusing to your consumers.