Become Unforgettable with These 5 Brand Consistency Tactics

Customers get attached to the brands they know, so it's not surprising that changes can affect their perception of your business. Maintaining brand consistency is key to keeping your audience happy. If a brand deviates from its long-term logo, visuals, and values, it can upset customer perceptions, cause confusion, and sometimes even hurt sales.

The solution is brand consistency that customers can trust, balanced with timely changes that align with your brand's values. In this guide, you'll learn five constructive strategies to bolster brand recognition, gain credibility, and create a lasting, memorable impression on your customer base.

1. Audit Your Visual Identity

Most brands have a presence across multiple channels, including their website, social media, advertisements, and physical storefronts. Each channel provides an opportunity to reinforce a brand's logo, color scheme, fonts, and imagery. Brands that use a cohesive set of visuals across each channel benefit from strong recognition among their audience.

A lack of uniform visuals can trigger uncertainty among customers. Say you use a green and yellow logo on your website, but on Instagram, it's purple and white. A customer who looks for your brand on Instagram might assume that the profile is for another company, or even worse, fake. This could cause you to miss out on valuable social media followers.

To verify consistent branding, assess the materials you use across each channel. Each visual element should fit neatly in place with the ones you use on other platforms, even if they aren't exactly the same.

Kristijan Binski, Co-Founder and Creative Director of Uniko Studio, emphasizes, "Balancing consistency with renewal is one of the most strategic decisions a brand can make. Consistency doesn't mean repeating the same design. Preserve the essence that makes a brand recognizable while allowing it to evolve with purpose. The strongest brands understand that design systems, like businesses, are living organisms. They adapt, refine, and modernize without losing the DNA that built trust in the first place."

Following this advice, a brand might keep the same color scheme throughout its marketing materials, but adjust the logo to fit specific platforms. For example, it could use the main logo on its website and a smaller variation for its social media icon.

One tool that can help you manage visuals across channels is a visual brand style guide. This includes the colors, fonts, and logos to use on specific platforms, plus a list of dos and don'ts for marketing teams to follow. With clear documentation, there's less risk of visual mistakes that confuse customers.

2. Keep Messaging Clear and Aligned

An error that can lead to customer misunderstandings is inconsistent messaging. This happens when communications deviate from a brand's normal voice and values.

For example, take a brand that uses a light-hearted, comedic tone that targets younger audiences in its marketing materials. If it suddenly runs an ad that's overly formal, it could turn off the customer base.

Quincy Samycia, CEO and Founder of The Branded Agency, advises brands to adopt a clear messaging strategy: "Ensure identity, experience, and performance evolve together. Consumers perceive disjointedness, where identity says one thing and the product says another, as a trust gap." To avoid disconnects that affect customer trust, make a list of your brand's core values and incorporate them into messaging copy, social media posts, emails, and marketing campaigns.

To accomplish this, many brands use a voice style guide for marketing teams to follow when drafting brand content. Like the visual style guide, it outlines the tone and unique attributes of a brand's messaging strategy for writers to apply to general content and product and service updates.

3. Strategically Evolve (Without Confusing Your Audience)

Consumer preferences change. And while brand consistency is key to maintaining strong customer relationships, there are times when it makes sense to adjust the logo, refresh color palettes, and adopt a more modern look.

According to our research, 52% of consumers expect minor updates to a brand's visuals every few years. But be wary of updating too frequently — only 17% of customers embrace dramatic and regular changes.

Small, thoughtful adjustments can modernize branding without alienating long-time customers. Such updates reinforce the brand's core values while better aligning with current trends. Reserve major brand overhauls for moments that mark a significant organizational change, such as a merger or product or service repositioning.

Creative Director Binski is no stranger to rebrands and recognizes how they can affect customer perception. "A rebrand feels on point when it's rooted in purpose and shaped by an understanding of the audience it serves. Authenticity comes from alignment, when what a company says, shows, and does all move in the same direction." In other words, have a clear reason for the rebrand that fits the company's values and customer expectations.

It's not always easy to anticipate how customers will react to change. A/B tests and soft launches can assist. These tools allow companies to evaluate how a small audience responds to changes in brand messaging and visuals. Insights from the tests provide genuine feedback for brands to consider before introducing a full-scale brand update.

4. Build Trust Through Transparency

A major brand revamp will surprise your audience — especially if they don't understand the reasoning behind it. Instead of dropping a new logo and color scheme and expecting customers to go along with the change, take the opportunity to expand on the "why" behind the changes.

Mo Dhaliwal, CEO of Skyrocket Digital, advocates for clear communication during rebrands. "Connect the change to benefits. What are the new associations? Is it faster service, better products, or expanded capabilities? Show customers what's possible that wasn't before." This approach does two things: clarifies branding intentions and showcases something positive about your brand, which drives more interest.

Simple ways to communicate changes include social media posts, email marketing campaigns, and website notes. You don't have to take out a full press release. Communication through platforms where customers will see it is usually enough.

One example of a successful rebranding is Facebook. In 2021, the company renamed itself Meta, the Greek word for "beyond." The rebrand reflected the organization's goal of expanding past social media into virtual reality and other technologies. Meta communicated the change through its website and social media channels.

Weight Watchers didn't fare so well. In 2018, it rebranded as WW to reflect growing wellness trends. However, company officials stayed silent about the motives behind the new name, confusing loyal clientele and failing to attract the younger audience it was trying to gain.

If possible, allow your audience to participate in the new branding, rather than just springing it on them. For instance, you could share a survey or an option to preview new products and beta features. This engages customers with the rebranding and makes it feel more collaborative.

5. Make Engagement a Natural Extension of Brand Consistency

A rebrand can drum up newfound interest in your company. People may visit your website, check out your social media accounts, or drop by your store to see what's changed. According to a Clutch survey, 86% of consumers who notice a rebrand are likely or somewhat likely to try new products and services. It can even win back consumers who lost interest in your brand. Over half (51%) of customers say they will reconsider a brand because of its fresh image or rebranding campaign.

Seize the opportunity to showcase your brand's evolution while still remaining true to its values. For example, a restaurant may highlight its new dishes while retaining a core list of crowd-pleasers that long-time customers enjoy. Or a mobile app may give users free access to its latest features for a trial period. These actions demonstrate what's changing without a complete overhaul of the business model that customers trust.

Reinforce the new branding across all touchpoints, including your website, social media accounts, product packaging, and storefronts. As customers grow used to the change, they'll come to recognize and accept it.

Balance Branding Consistency With Growth

Maintaining brand consistency while evolving with the times requires a careful approach. Major changes could upset loyal clients, while failing to adapt to shifting trends could make it difficult to attract new ones.

Before changing your brand's visuals or marketing message, define your reason for doing so and develop a clear way to communicate it to customers. Thoroughly test the change with smaller audiences to see how they react. Once you're satisfied that a branding update makes sense, get behind the change and share the new updates across your communication channels.

If you're considering a branding update, hire a branding agency to work with you to develop a strategy that resonates with your customers. A professional partner can support a thoughtful brand evolution and avoid mishaps that confuse customers and hurt sales.

About the Author

Jeanette Godreau Senior Content Marketing Specialist at Clutch

Jeanette Godreau crafts in-depth content on web design, graphic design, and branding to help B2B buyers make confident decisions on Clutch.  

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