Brand Governance

I think of this as three primary things: How does the brand look? What is the brand voice? What IP needs to be protected?

Brand Look - The brand should look like the brand, regardless of who created it.

Crafting and maintaining a brand’s visual guidelines book is a rare privilege and challenge on its own. How proscriptive, flexible and wide-reaching is it? An exhaustive book can be quickly out of date as the business, teams and technology evolve. Finding the sweet spot takes practice and partnership through marketing, executive and creative teams.

Sidebar: Does a brand look evolve and change across time and channels? Absolutely, yet it should be a conscious evolution that’s aligned and vetted. Every creative team member has ideas and concepts that fall “outside of bounds” and creatives need the opportunity to explore ideas and in a collaborative review discuss, critique, brainstorm and further develop those ideas and concepts that may well be the next step in the visual look of a brand. This type of creative review is part of a healthy creative process in support of the brand’s evolution.

I had the opportunity to help a fellow overlander and business owner with some brand consulting. Goose Gear had a logo but no guidelines for its use. This PDF provided basic guidelines and a range of brand logo treatments.

Brand Voice - Is your tone professional or casual? Is it heavily technical and include jargon that needs to be softened? Are things spelled right?

Brand IP - The nitty gritty. Did you cross the I’s and dot the T’s correctly? Is that ™ now an ®? Is that third-party IP an issue? As brands grow, these IP considerations bloom and can impact brand messaging. Finding a balance between the legal team’s preferences and easy reading for your audience is part of curating brand content.

“Good creative process takes practice.”