What Is A Powerful Brand Style Guide?
What Is Brand Identity? Why It's Needed...
Consistency is the key to every successful business. No matter how big or small the company is, its consistency is what builds its brand.
Think about brick and mortar buildings first.
Walk into any Home Depot, Dick's Sporting Goods, or Publix, all large chains with varying business models and different products.
The one thing they all have in common from the start is branding.
You know the orange color of Home Depot, the green of Dick's Sporting Goods and Publix. You recognize their logos and visual appeal consistently at every single store anywhere in the country. This is their Brand Identity.
Photo by Solen Feyissa on Unsplash
Now think about online companies like Facebook, Amazon, and Squarespace.
Visit any page from any of those online companies. You notice that although they all serve a different purpose, you see they each have one thing in common, branding.
The blue of the Facebook and Amazon logos and the minimalistic style of the black and White Squarespace logo are consistent throughout every single piece of advertising and marketing you find on the Internet. Amazon's branding is consistent throughout the company all the way down to their warehouse and vehicles. Each online company has Brand Identity.
What The Marketing Style Guide is And How It Affects Your Business?
Hmm, I wonder if this happened by accident, or if they have the same marketing firm?
Not!
What each of these companies has in common is a solid Brand Style Guide or Marketing Style Guide.
Suppose you are a small business owner or solopreneur. In that case, you probably wonder what the marketing style guide is and how it affects your business.
Photo by Kelli McClintock on Unsplash
A Marketing Style Guide or Brand Style Guide is the rule book for branding the company, much like the sacred playbooks that athletes follow and study in any sport.
A good Brand Style Guide will define your brand style and brand voice for your business regardless of your size.
Let's look at Squarespace.
They are a U.S. company based out of New City using the software as a service. They provide templates and hosting services for building websites.
Using their all-in-one content management system, I pay for a subscription, pick a template for my website, and register my custom domain name (https://www.danisturgisagency.com).
I can set up an online store to sell products or services and view my website's analytics. I see Squarespace branding, their header, footer, body contents, visuals, logos, font styles, and colors with each step I take.
If you browse the site I built using their template, you will see the same. The headers, footers, fonts, colors, and even spacing are the same throughout in the style I chose.
Using their template, I was able to start my own Brand Style Guide. Customizations specific to my company are simple to make and easy to track.
As my business expands and my marketing materials go to print or other platforms, I can take my branding style guide and apply those same principles.
Outside of a company's look and feel is the ever-important language or voice of the company.
What Is Brand Voice?
Looking at our brick and mortar examples, we will use Home Depot as our voice example.
Home Depot is a home improvement retailer geared mainly to those who like to do it themselves. They offer contract services for home improvement jobs out of the average skill set. They have a solid home appliance section. You will find most major brands of home appliances in their department.
What you won't find are commercial-grade high-end appliances like Vulcan or Wolfe ranges.
Home Depot's voice when they describe their ranges will be geared toward families who are busy and like to cook at home.
Examples of their voice include the following:
"Double Oven Gas Ranges, Allows you to cook two dishes at different temperatures simultaneously" or,
"Single Oven Gas Ranges, Accommodates multiple dishes at once, so you can cook for a large family in less time."
However, Vulcan would use descriptions like "V SERIES HEAVY DUTY RANGES, Designed for continuous use in high-volume operations. Sturdy construction with 35,000 BTU/hr per burner. Fully customizable."
Do you notice a stark difference in the language between the two?
Home Depot highlighted the features of cooking multiple dishes at once to feed your family in less time. Whereas Vulcan highlighted the amount of BTU's/hr for their ranges to show the power for the commercial kitchens.
Photo By Jossuha Théophile on Unsplash
Let's break voice down one more level and look at the food and lifestyle industry.
The trend in food and healthy lifestyles is to eat more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. More and more Americans are moving to a whole food plant-based diet to treat or prevent chronic disease through science-backed education.
Nutritionstudies.org will tell you this is simple, eat whole, unrefined, plant-based foods. Foods that are not processed contain no refined sugar and are plant-based. Eating this way would eliminate Meat, Dairy, Eggs, and added fats from oils and margarine. Sound familiar? It should.
Nutritionalstudies.org will also tell you a vegan diet consists of the same whole, unrefined, plant-based foods. Foods that are not processed contain no refined sugar and are plant-based, typically for ethical reasons. And there lies the difference.
Imagine this scenario, you are a dual board-certified Dr. of Family and Lifestyle medicine. Who treats patients with a holistic approach to well-being based on science.
You need help with print and web-based copy material for education and hire a copywriter who identifies as a vegan and writes in a voice dedicated to the treatment of animals and not focused on the science-backed evidence.
My gut is telling me there would be some revisions going back and forth on copy material.
The brand voice of the company is just as important as the branding style of the company.
Words that can and cannot be used should be included in the branding style guide, along with any acceptable and unacceptable visuals.
No matter how big or small, your company should have a solid Brand Style Guide that outlines its brand's various components to define the company's Brand Identity.
Need help getting your style guide together? Let's have coffee and see how I can help you.
