There was a time when the concept of consistency was limited to a brand’s visual identity. Those of us who have been in the industry for a while may even remember the dreaded ‘brand police’ arriving with grids to check creative work, to stamp out any deviations in terms of logos, image style and placement, exclusion zones, colours, layouts, and type face usage.
We aren’t saying that that consistency in how a brand presents itself isn’t still important. But these days brand consistency has a much broader meaning. It covers all consumer touchpoints at each step of the customer journey and extends inside organisations to drive its culture.
Peter Drucker is reputed to have said: ‘Culture eats strategy for breakfast’, emphasising the vital importance of ensuring the strategy an organisation has for its brands and its business is hardwired together to create a defined, shared, and aligned culture.
This is a truth just as relevant to product brand businesses as service brand ones, and highlights the broader definition of consistency that we recognise today.
It’s probably worth defining what we at D&D drives culture.
Successful culture is founded on an agreed set of values and attitudes – a distinctive way of doing things, and a unique point of view on the world – neatly drawn together and summed up by a driving purpose and a set of clear values which people take to heart and bring to life in their daily work lives, always striving to audiences them from mere consumers into fans.
For example: Lego will sometimes send out free replacement figures (and extras) if a child loses their own; KFC is exchanging a joke right now with its customer with its ‘we’re not doing turkey at Christmas’ campaign. And who can forget Bob, an Asda employee, who brought out some jump leads from the store to jump start a stranded customer’s car.
Finding values that work in the round is why D&D spends more time than most and explores more widely than many to help crystallize and sustain culture and values, as well as providing clients with the strategies and skills they will need to ensure seamless and faultless consistency in their go-to-market activities.