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.