Research on Brand Guidelines

Despite the amount of information inherent in brand guidelines, theoretical exploration of this document is scarce, despite academic advancement on other brand concept, brand guidelines have been neglected. Mogaji thematically analysed UK Universities brand guidelines; the study highlights how university as a body sees their brand and wants it conveyed. There are still many research opportunities for brand communication researchers as they explore brand guidelines.
The document provides insight into brand values and the brand elements, a thematic and content analysis could offer a deeper insight into how brands in an industry are presenting their brands; their creative elements such as logo, types and colours can also be further researched, perhaps if there are differences in the use of these elements.
Theoretically, this can also be linked to Corporate Identity Model which consists of a corporate name, logotype and symbol of the organisation. Previous studies on corporate identity have been from the perspective of users such as students and customers and not from the perspective of the brand owners. This is one of the gaps that are worth exploring: to understand brand identity from the brand’s point of view through the analysis of their brand guidelines.