The Missing Link Between Guideline and Implementation
Benefits of Tool Based Corporate Identity Management
by Kerstin Heinemann (pi-consult gmbh)
Style guides, Corporate Identity portals as well as Corporate Identity manuals are used by companies in order to establish, sharpen and preserve their Corporate Identity. The booklets of rules containing illustrated examples of CI-conform work are accesible to everyone via the intranet or can be requested in printed form, on a CD-ROM or as a PDF-file. Actually, all employees of a company are thus well-prepared to create CI-conform communication means. Actually. Going to a company where “actually” every employee should live the Corporate Identity and looking through employees' mailboxes, attending customer presentations or just opening the newspaper and having a look at the latest retailer ad proves: the fact that “actually” everybody knows that Corporate Identity guidelines exist and where they can be read, does not mean that communication in fact is CI-conform. Basic condition for a company to benefit from the advantages of a Corporate Identity is that it is really lived. But how create the link between the large CI manuals and a dealer advert which was finished last-minute with no time left to double check in the style guide. Or what about the logo with not exactly the colors it ought to have, which still landed on name plates created in a hurry. What about the wording “sports shoes” used in a flyer, whilst, “actually”, it is clear that the term to be used would have been “sneakers”? There is a gap between the well-established CI-rules and the operative implementation of the guidelines, which can hardly be briged in everyday business. Just no time to look it up, the logo couldn't be found in the correct resolution and quality or it was just new to the employee that the term “sneakers” should always be used instead of “sports shoes”.
More and more companies are aware of this gap and try to close it by implementing a Brand Management System. These systems are used for Corporate Identity Management with the aim of giving maximum support to employees, local subsidiaries and branches as well as retailers when dealing with the consistent use of CI elements such as graphics, logos and texts. Brand Management Systems unify all resources for Corporate Identity Management on one central platform.
Example Media-Neutral Database
Brand Management Systems provide a media neutral database, which contains all layout elements, media objects, and also text blocks. Each object can furthermore be described in detail regarding its use. Also, attached to each object is information regarding the time fram in which it may be used and licence information. Graphical material is stored independently from the media which it can be used for and can therefore always be downloaded in the format required.
Differenciated rights and roles as well as special mechanisms for release ensure that the elements and objects saved are indeed conform with the Corporate Identity. All employees and external sales and communication players can access the Brand Asset Management locally via their web browser, where they find the reqiured elements and download them for use.
Example CI-Conform Media Management
Brand Management Systems support CI compliance by template-based publication of printed and online materials: Templates for business cards, flyers, brochures, ads and newsletters are available in the brand asset management system. Experts determine the template parts which may be modified by single users. If, for example, a retailer wants to take out an ad regionally, the retail employees can create the ad in conformity with the CI in less than five minutes: They just select a template, edit the fields which may be modified and adapt the ad individually to their offer. At large enterprises, where diverse departments are involved in communication, and at companies communicating locally via retailers or branches, such a media management entails immense advantages with regard to the CI: All employees can keep to the CI easily, since the templates they use are CI-conform. And they can be sure that modifying editable content does not cause any layout changes, too. By providing a fast and easy workflow for the creation of materials, it is also ensured that employees prefer working in the system rather than creating their own materials, since this would require much more effort. Another benefit are the synergies regarding CI management: by reusing templates many times, the overall costs for CI-conform communication will eventually decrease, especially with decentralized communication efforts. Agency services for laying out ads or flyers can completely be abandoned, since the system produces a ready-for-printer-PDF file. Additionally, the quality of communication is not subdue to any variations any more and customers experience a consistent presentation of the company at all times.
Example Terminology Management
Some Brand Management Systems even go farther: they ensure a consistent corporate speech, an integral part of a lived Corporate Indentity. Already during the creation of a text, such systems check the wording and recognize formulations which are not CI-conform. But this is not everything the system does. Intelligent terminology management proposes correct formulations which correspond to the corporate speech so that the employee just selects a correct term from a list of recommended formulations. The system thus recognizes the “sports shoe” at once as a term which is not in accordance with corporate speech and alternatively proposes the formulation “sneaker”.
One system offering all the solutions for a consistent CI implementation described above is the Brand Management System BrandMaker. Especially by providing the module “Terminology Management”, BrandMaker is a system covering up the whole bandwidth of marketing operations by adding the dimension of “corporate speech”. Altogether, Brand Management Systems like BrandMaker noticeably optimize communication processes and create enormous benefits in the field of Corporate Identity Management:
Communication conformity with the Corporate Identity covers all system modules. Regardless, whether ads, flyers, brochures, business cards or door labels are to be created - working with defined templates entails that that the proportion of CI-conform materials increases drastically without increasing the time spent on reviews and correction. Working with a Brand Management System sharpens the employees' awareness of the Corporate Identity tremendously - they memorize the CI far more easily.
As a consequence, employees can really implement the CI in their daily business, the company communicates more stringently and the gap between theory and practice is closed. Whenever CI guidelines were seen as annoying regulations before, it has appeared that a Brand Management System turns them into valuable support for employees to cope with every day's communication tasks. And if there are still special jobs which require the support of CI-guidelines, this support is given by the Brand Management System, too: it contains the CI Portal as a substantial part besides the operative applications.
About BrandMaker
BrandMaker is a holistic Brand Management System offering a wide range of solutions: applications on the strategic level (brand scorecards as “guardrails” for marketing operations) are offered as well as modules for the executive level (integrated marketing planning and budgeting) and modules for the operative marketing ( e.g. for zentral and local communication by templates-based ad management or the media pool). The system is built on a modular basis and tailored to the customers' requirements. BrandMaker is a product of pi-consult gmbh, Karlsruhe (Germany), and has been successfully implemented at marketing departments of companies from diverse industry sectors. The IT service provider for optimized communication with 100 employees across Europe.
Source:
BrandMaker