Conclusion

This paper has attempted to provide a holistic understanding about the brand guideline. Acknowledging the cost involved in designing brand identities, guidelines on how best to use it is essential. A company should not invest so much money on a project and not have a manual or guide on how to make the best use of the outcomes. The brand guideline is considered one of the rebranding deliverables that is prepared for the brand by the brand agency. It is essential that brand owners have this at the end of the project.
It is also argued that the brand lines should be made publicly available, at least made available on request for anyone who is interested in knowing more about the brand, surely any trade secret should be excluded from brand guidelines. The document should be available online on the company’s website or a downloadable PDF version. The online version can also allow for sample video and audio as brand identities. On the note of availability, it is vital that the document is dated, and the version number should be presented.
Both internal and external users should be made aware of the brand guidelines, it makes no use to create the identity and the guideline and not to make it available. Likewise, efforts should be made towards a consistent use, the paper also argues the need for Brand police, to surely report any situation in which the brand is not properly integrated, and actions should be put in place to address such issues. For example, if staff sees that the logo is not used correctly by a vendor in another country, there should be an avenue to report it.
Brand guidelines are not just limited to big corporations, small business and start-ups can also have their brand guiltiness, albeit not very detailed but at least the logo, the shade of colour and font being used, these three basics are essential to ensure consistency. Also, individual brands can also have their brand guidelines, Celebrities, sports personalities and entertainers who have a recognised brand can also have their brand identities documented in a brand guideline.
This has been an attempt to theoretically presents this insight on brand guidelines as little academic insight on this matter, Researchers and students in brand management will find this relevant for brand identity, brand integration and brand architecture studies and research. Ideas for future research studies have also been presented. Likewise, brand managers may also find these relevant, especially those working with smaller brands which do not have a guideline and those with established brands looking at properly documenting their brand architecture and identities.