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How toDevelop& Enforce

Brand Management Guide for Fortune 500 & SMBs

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: WebDAM provides the leading platform

for brand management and sharing brand assets ⎯ such as images, logos, graphics, brand guidelines, docs,

presentations, videos, and more.

1730 S. Amphlett Blvd Ste 320 1.877.408.4888San Mateo, CA 94402 [email protected] www.webdamsolutions.com

In order to stay competitive in the digital world, your organization

must have a successful brand reputation. Follow these best practices

to develop and enforce brand guidelines that stick.

Brand Guidelines

2014 Enterprise Edition

http://www.webdamsolutions.com



IntroductionA successful brand reputation can be one of your best assets for

achieving victory over your competition. For this reason, most

companies spend huge sums of money on brand strategy, brand

management, promotion, and creative work.

In order to succeed in the digital world, deploying and enforcing

brand standards is critical. The purpose of this guide is to help you

establish a successful application of your brand identity across your

organization and beyond. By following these steps, your enterprise

will become a Brand Without Boundaries™.

A brand is more than a logo, tagline, and color palette. A brand is a

living, breathing, and evolving feeling that resonates in all aspects of

your business. For example, think about the logo on your computer

right now. Immediately, your mind just induced certain images and

feelings around that company. Now ― what type of emotions and

images do you want evoked when your company is mentioned?

1. Develop a ConsensusTo succeed, there needs to be a consensus on defining

your brand. Start at the top. Schedule a series of quick

meetings with your CEO, CMO, Sales, Customer

Success Directors, and other key leaders. Get a

consensus and identify what clearly sets you apart

from others. Next identify the desired feelings around

your company and products. This is your brand.

99% of the time, these meetings are enjoyable for

everyone and spark great ideas. Next, permeate this

information in every brand activity at your

company. Start by developing or optimizing

brand guidelines at your organization.

First off, what is your brand?


2. Deploy Brand Guidelines When creating or optimizing brand guidelines, ensure that the following is included:

Mission StatementDefines why you exist and the promise your company makes to your

audience. Keep it short and sweet. Don’t just sound nice. Your mission

statement should have an optimistic spin while communicating value,

inspiration, plausibility, and specificity.

Brand Purpose & Key MessagesDon’t just have a brand purpose, have a defining purpose. Purpose-

driven branding is essential to success. Key messages should be listed.

They should enable each employee to answer “Why are we here” in a

manner that connects to their audience. The most important

ingredient is credibility to your mission statement and representing key

differentiators. Show proof in data points and keep it simple. Be sure

to clearly represent your company’s tone and voice. Brands can be

“serious” to “playful”, “professional” to “fun”or “informal.”

Company Culture Brand your corporate culture. This will fuel and

mobilize your organization around your brand,

purpose, business strategy and the values your

organization stands for. It also creates a consistent

and team oriented approach to growing brand

equity. Educate your team on what your company

stands for. Design your office, tone, and activities to

represent it. Everyone should be a brand advocate.

TaglinesList all the approved taglines for your organization.

Even better, define where each one should be used.


LogosProvide access to a clear set of company logos, product logos, and a

list of how they should be used and not used. For legal reasons, you

should write “TM” (unregistered trademark) or an “R” (registered

mark) next to your logos. You should include various file formats such

as jpeg, png with transparent backgrounds, illustrator, press-optimized

PDF, screen resolutions(72dpi, RGB) and press resolutions (300dpi,

CMYK).

You can make them public accessible or private. Some companies

provide both. You can provide a public facing online brand portal that

gives access to low resolution files. For access to high-res print

optimized files, require your audience to submit a request or sign in for

download access. Most companies use a Digital Asset Management

platform for this. You can have a customized Brand Portal for secured

or nonsecured download access, monitoring who is using what, and

have usage agreements and brand guidelines displayed during the

download process.

Digital Assets LibraryTo deliver your brand guidelines and branded files,

you should have an online library. It’s impossible to

grow a brand if your brand guidelines and files are

not readily accessible – anytime, anywhere. Most

branded assets need to be shared across internal

departments, contractors, partners, and the outside

media. To enforce, grow, and manage a brand

successfully, most enterprises deploy a digital assets

library, known in the industry as a digital asset

management platform (DAM). Your company’s

DAM should also display your brand guidelines.

The web interface itself should also adhere to your

own brand guidelines.

Color PaletteDefine your company’s approved color palette and

represent it visually and with the values for each

color. Provide the values for Print Colors, also

known as CMYK and Pantone. Provide the values






for Web Colors, also known as RGB and Hexadecimal. Many people

don’t know the difference, so you should define what values should be

used for what.

TypographyMake sure your designers, partners, and team members maintain brand

consistency by using the correct fonts. Identify the typefaces. You can

also provide guidelines for typefaces for different mediums (video,

web, powerpoint, internal documents, etc.)

Examples of What Not to SayDefine all phrases, words, stories, and descriptions that should never

be used.

ImageryDefine what kind of photos should be used and what stylization

should be applied. We advise that should also display what types of

images should never be used, such as cheesy stock photography.

Usage Rights Policy Upon downloading branded files, force your

audience to agree to file usage terms and conditions.

Stating them clearly on your website is one method.

The best approach is to automatically pop up an

agreement form that people have to digitally sign in

order to complete the download. This forces your

audience to agree to the terms of the file. Most

digital asset management platforms provide this

capability.


3. Enforce Brand Guidelines

With brand guidelines and a DAM in place, you can now

enforce your brand across your enterprise and outside

partners. However, there are still additional best

practices to consider.

Have Executives Review and Sign Off

Create an internal campaign that showcases your brand

guidelines and the location of all branded assets. First,

have all executives review your brand guidelines and sign

off on them. Next, send out internal communications

and direct access to your guidelines and DAM.

Foster Openness

Everything in business evolves including your brand.

Be open to change which could help your company

grow. Encourage your customers and employees to

provide feedback on your brand and test out new

approaches. Brand Guidelines are guidelines; they are

not etched in stone. Continuously evolve them as your

company evolves.

Distribute from a Central LocationThis is critical. Whether you’re using a DAM or

some custom home-grown solution, ensure that

access to branded assets and guidelines come from

one central location. To eliminate risk and brand

inconsistency, companies must ensure that

everyone is using the most current version and

Achieve Loyalty.


correct files. Having one central repository for your branded files

provides a digital guardian within your company. This ensures that

only the approved assets are being used inside and outside your

organization, known as a digital asset management or brand

management platform.

Live Your Brand. Use your branded assets, tone, and guidelines at every opportunity within your organization. Most importantly, make them accessible. If your employees don’t live your brand, it won’t stick outside either. From your company parties, furniture, data sheets, color themes, to your company attire and keynotes — your brand should be everywhere.

Simultaneously, make it super easy for your employees, partners, media, and the public to understand and locate your brand assets. With today’s digital world, everyone wants to move fast.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: WebDAM provides the leading brand management

platform for managing, controlling, and sharing creative files ⎯ such as images, logos, brand guidelines,

graphics, docs, presentations, videos, and more.

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