I read 100s of brand consistency articles. None helped. So I wrote one that does.

“The key is to set realistic customer expectations, and then not to just meet them, but to exceed them — preferably in unexpected and helpful ways.” – Richard Branson

Each time I order something on Amazon, I fully expect the experience to be easy and straightforward (I can’t say I expect the same when I go to get my driver’s license renewed from the DMV!).We all have certain expectations that are formed by a company’s consistency (or lack thereof). If the next time I order from Amazon, I’m prompted with extra pop ups, unnecessary questions and confusing qualifiers, my expectations in the future will change.Brand consistency prevents this type of change from taking place.

4. Eases the marketing process

Imagine this scenario: One of the marketing teams for the soft drink company, Pepsi, is having a meeting. They’re thinking about how they’ll go about marketing their upcoming new product, P-8, an energy drink.

A few marketers suggest an extreme label for the can, indicating a fierce experience. Others suggest a label with ‘fast’ items on it, such as a race car or cheetah.

Another marketer believes putting an athlete on the label would be best, since the energy drink would be a performance enhancer.

Here’s a much better suggestion, fueled by the power of brand consistency: put the Pepsi logo on the label. It’s that simple. Your consistency through the years has created brand value that needs no introduction, as it were.

Next, let’s take a look at how consistency builds loyalty over time.

5. Creates customer loyalty

It’s easy to show brand loyalty to brands who practice consistency. Quick quiz for you. Pretend you’re planning on buying a new truck. You head to a website and see that they have three different types. Below are the logos:

Based on these logos alone, would you take a truck from 1, 2 or 3?

I know your answer before posing the question. Obviously you’ll go with 1 or 2 (Chevy and Ford), even if you don’t favor those brands of automobiles personally. The reason being is that they’re consistent. They provide at least a semblance of quality with each transaction, and this is over a long history.

Logo 3, no matter what they offer, no matter how cheap their truck is, just isn’t going to win your trust. This is a demonstration of customer loyalty as a result of brand consistency.

Even if company 3 had a truck that was better in every way than 1 or 2, no one is going to stray from their built-in loyalty. Keep that in mind.

Now that you have a good idea of the rewards you’ll get from maintaining brand consistency, it’s time to learn how to implement helpful strategies.

Brand consistency strategies

These will legitimately boost your efficiency and give you a lot of sway with your target audience, especially if carried out optimally. Let’s begin!

1. ‘Show, don’t tell’ applies to brand consistency. Follow it!

Let’s try an experiment to illustrate the idea of ‘show, don’t tell’. The following is a group of drawings that have absolutely no products or logos in them:

Based on these drawings alone, can you guess which brand they represent? I’m guessing that over 90 percent of you can. Immediately, in fact.

Is it because you’ve seen the exact commercial they took place in and remember it? Maybe, but probably not.

Rather, it’s more likely that you know that it is an advertisement for Red Bull because of the drawing style.

So how does ‘show, don’t tell’ apply here? Well, imagine seeing an advertisement similar to the above and knowing immediately what brand is being represented. This campaign didn’t need to jam their product and logo in your face to successfully promote their brand. It was just natural.

Does this mean a recognizable visual style is necessary to ‘show, don’t tell’ in your own campaign? Of course not. The key takeaway from the success of the Red Bull campaigns isn’t that their visual style is unique (though this is part of it). Instead, it’s that Red Bull uses this unique style consistently.

‘Show, don’t tell’ gives companies a chance to reap the benefits of consistency while making a unique campaign that shows why their product or service is best.

If your company’s laptops have been the sturdiest for twenty years, run an advertisement demonstrating it. Submerge your latest model underwater and show it still kicking. At the end of the day, it will be a lot more effective than simply pointing out in a text ad that your computers are sturdy.

When you show instead of tell, you’re able to maintain consistency without overwhelming your target audience with promotion.

2. Be flexible when you can. Hold steady when you need to. Never be flimsy.

“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.” – Albert Einstein

Now, this may seem to go against the basic concept of consistency, but you need to be flexible when the situation calls for it. In fact, even if a bit of flexibility could detract from the brand identity you’ve built, it’s important for your brand regardless.

Here’s a situation where being flexible could come in handy. Imagine a retail company builds their brand by ensuring customers they will have the shortest lines of any grocery markets around. They accomplish this by restricting customers from exceeding three carts full of groceries.

Customers grow to love this concept and the company grows to be one of the most popular stores in the world.

One day, a woman with seven young children is shopping at this store. She’s a bit stressed out and is trying to control her kids while getting food they need for the week. She ends up filling three carts.

This is a time when being flexible won’t hurt your brand. Allowing her to go through as an exception won’t ruin everything you’ve built up until now. It will also give your brand a hint of compassion in the eyes of your customers.

In comparison, it’s equally important to be firm when you need to. Using the above example, being firm is what initially grew the brand. Whenever somebody got into a line with three full carts, they were told to step out and put some items back in order to complete their purchase.

Holding steady like this builds consistency and shows customers that your brand stays true to its ideals.

Finally, make sure to not be flimsy. In the context of our fictional grocery brand, being flimsy would entail occasionally allowing random customers to break the line rules with no good reason.

This flimsiness won’t earn any praise from customers, and eventually it will become clear that your brand isn’t consistent.

3. Just because you set it up, doesn’t mean they will knock it down. Prepare for this reality.

Here are a couple different situations showing that this principle is an important thing to understand:

a) Two young, motivated women start their own company on the idea that they could handle customer service for larger corporations. What sets them apart is they’re well-versed in dealing with potentially angry customers and know how to rectify numerous situations.

They name their company, “As nice as it gets”. After a few months of promotion, they land a couple jobs. Their performance is excellent, and eventually they’re offered full control over a large company’s customer service.

This meant that the owners would have to bring on some employees to help out with the now extra work. The trick would be finding people who were able to maintain the ‘As nice as it gets’ brand.

They had an idea. After finishing their hires, they would set everything up for each employee so that they would understand exactly how to behave on the phone or over email with customers.

They printed out sheets that gave advice on how to deal with certain problems and customers. After distributing the sheets and giving some detailed training, the women knew their employees were given all they needed in order to maintain brand consistency.

Everything was going smoothly the first day, with employees following the branding guide, adhering to the brand values of ‘As good as it gets’. Then a rebellious young hire strayed from the script and began mistreating customers, showing indifference and overall rudeness.

b) You’ve just finished a brand style guide that demonstrates the fonts, layouts, schemes, colors and logos that makeup your brand. Every employee has access to it, and you feel that this, as well as the meetings you’ve held concerning brand values and ideals, should be enough to ensure consistency.

Certainly, this gives all team members a chance to create projects and campaigns that fulfill your brand guidelines. However, you’re finding that a lot of newly published articles are lacking the right branding materials.

The team members are trying their best to follow the brand style guide with each piece they create, but for whatever reason they’re failing.

This could be cured with a simple process that implements some type of ‘before-release’ brand check. It’s fine to give team members the space and freedom to create without constant oversight, but make sure there is at least a brand safety net before each piece is released.

Sometimes the best way to ensure consistency in this situation is to make every team member consider how their creation ties in with the brand.

Situations ‘a’ and ‘b’ above are both common realities companies face when trying to stay brand consistent.

It’s way too easy for branding experts to tell you, “Make sure you have a clear brand style guide for all team members.” By now, everyone understands that concept.

However, what really matters is how employees handle these tasks. It’s important that you set the branding guidelines up, but don’t forget – ‘they’ won’t always knock them down!

Closing thoughts

There are plenty of branding articles, blog posts, videos and experts that suggest basic ways to maintain brand consistency. While it is important to get the basics down, this type of advice won’t pull your brand out of mediocrity.

Instead, extend your creativity and ideas past the normal. Think of ways to hammer down your consistency that others haven’t discovered yet. Chances are, you’ll find yourself on the right side of success. Good luck!

Check out our complete branding guide to learn more.