With brands operating in both tangible and intangible forms, the ability to manage your brand has never been more important. Before looking at how to manage your brand, let’s unpick what “brand management” means. Many would suggest it’s the ability to analyse and influence how a brand is perceived by its audience through careful planning and implementation. Others would have you believe it’s maintaining the consistency of the assets, ensuring they are used correctly, in line with brand guidelines. It’s really a combination of both, with one dependent on the other. This is often centrally managed in a bespoke, or off-the-shelf platform. By ensuring the consistency of the assets, coupled with a robust but flexible design which supports customization, your brand perception becomes measurable.
Organizations spend valuable time and resources creating brand assets, defining layouts, selecting appropriate color palettes and typography, as well as optimizing logos and designs to define their brand guidelines. The process of managing brand assets effectively becomes an integral part of brand management. It can be challenging; people, processes, and products all have an impact on the way brands are managed internally and presented externally. No two organizations are alike, and neither is brand management. However, these six principles are the core elements for successfully managing your brand.
We live in an “instant” society, driven by the need to have things immediately and in the format we choose. If users can’t access brand assets when they need them, they won’t get them from an approved source. You can manage the risk of colleagues finding old logos from a Google search, by making access to your brand assets simple and straightforward. This also helps when you’re not in the same office, speak the same language or live in the same time zone.
Control
When people think about control, they often think about locking down access. But if you want your team and organization to take advantage of a well thought out brand, giving people the right access permissions will help them use it responsibly. With a little innovation, you can simultaneously embed the brand and make it more cost effective.
The brand belongs to everyone, so why not invest in your brand across the organisation, finding budget from teams which depend on it? With the right management system, a decentralised brand can help you sell it into the organisation, increasing the consistency and use as well as being more affordable across the organisation.
Security
Given the advent of GDPR legislation, organisations are working hard to safeguard data, its use and authorisation to disseminate. Don’t forget your brands assets; image rights, mailing lists, billing info, and digital asset management are the backbone to any brand. A centralised asset repository, with user permissions, ‘track and trace’ and effective data visibility will address concerns and secure your peace of mind.
Scalability
Having a flexible, adaptable brand is essential to making it work across a range of products, but have you thought about how you’re going to resource this? Instead of creating contingencies or dipping into reserves, having a plan to scale up in line with your organisation’s strategy will keep your brand alive while the organisation develops. Projecting how the brand can grow with the organisation will also help embed it.
Functionality
Looking to extend your brand’s reach and continue pushing new boundaries? A brand should work for, rather than prohibit, your organisation. Give your users the brand tools to help this happen – a simple well-structured interface with functionality and features to match your audience’s expectations. As your brand grows and develops so too will the demands on your team, make sure your brand management platform can continue to deliver.
Flexibility
Remember QR codes or phones with keyboards? Things change. As our brand evolves over time, so too do our audiences and how we engage with them. Brand assets that we have worked so hard to create need room to adapt and grow in the environment around them. The right tech to manage your brand can be a key component for safeguarding the longevity of use in a very changeable environment.
Is a brand asset management platform the solution?
It’s hard when we’re passionate about something and others don’t share that passion. If you’re a brand manager, don’t fall into the trap of believing everyone will understand the importance of brand management. Make it your mission to champion the cause and find the right brand management tools for your organisation. You might want to consider a brand management platform.
Designed to simplify life for their users, correctly deployed, it can save time and cost while also empowering users by giving them the right access to brand assets and resources. Ordering becomes straightforward and finding documents, images, videos and content now takes no more than a click. Generating on-brand resources makes you feel like you’re the designer, without having to worry if the correct version or updated logo is being used. Brand asset management platforms take care of it for you, leaving you to concentrate on connecting with your audience. A brand management platform could be an important part of your brand armoury.