How to Create Effective Brand Identity System and Manage It Over Time?

It’s quite different than, say, five years ago. Then, companies had learned the importance of marketing communications in general, and many companies were even creating very effective ads and other forms of media. But they hadn’t yet understood the importance of how all those communications should collectively work in a unified manner.

 

Today they do understand that, but many have not made the effort to create a unified appearance. Most think that to do so is costly, when in fact the media cost is the same regardless of whether their marketing communications are unified or not. After you have established a unified brand appearance, it doesn’t cost more to create a unified marketing communications either. There can even be some savings when common formats are used.

 

What most companies do not yet understand is that a unified appearance is more than a design matter, that it should be strategically developed to align with the long term plans a company needs to make in differentiating itself from its competitors.

 

Actually, small enterprises are already expending their budgets on an important part of brand identity, namely on the marketing communications that every business needs to create awareness in the marketplace. The problem is that they are not using a differentiating strategy to guide the creation of those communications, instead using personal ideas, as you say. This will have a negative effect on the ability to grow of any enterprise.

 

It does take cost and effort to initially establish a brand identity system that is strategically oriented, but that’s an investment that will readily pay a company back in the increased sales effectiveness of every piece of media it is applied to, from business cards to billboards.

 

If budget is not available for this initial investment, the solution lies in education. Leaders must learn enough about branding themselves, so that they can choose creative sources that also know about branding, and then to direct these sources adequately.

 

I think they will increase, driven by two factors – the foreign brands that have had decades of free market experience in learning how to develop strong brands. And by local companies who learn today what their foreign competitors learned yesterday. The greater competitiveness from these two sources will require companies to respond in kind. If they don’t, they will continue to lose market share and suffer the consequences.

 

What all brands need to learn now is not only how to create an effective brand identity system, but how to manage it over time. It takes effort to maintain a unified appearance, an effort that is not unlike the quality control efforts required for any process in order to extend effectiveness over time. It is here that even companies who have become knowledgeable about branding are most remiss.

 

We’ve been active in Vietnam since 1994 with plan to continue offering our services in developing brand identities for Vietnamese companies, and in creating brand communications in general for traditional offline media and new online media. Since we first became active here, we have taken a strong role in education about brand communications, and we plan to continue that as well.

 

We speak at seminars several times a year, both for business groups and universities. Our articles about branding appear regularly in the press and online. Our website, RmooreA.com, includes over 50 brand-related case histories. And just over a year ago we launched BrandDance.vn, a blog that features weekly posts from me and my team, and from other sources worldwide.