Inspiration for your brand

CI Handbook: From Commandments and Prohibitions to a Source of Inspiration

Until the end of the last century, most corporate identity guidelines were written like educational aids at best, and mostly like regulations from authorities to keep the brand in check. "Don't do this, always do that. Use this grid and these colors - nothing else is allowed."

The venerable CI manual was a set of rules to protect the brand - a well-intentioned means to a good end.
It included everything: business cards, company stationery, building signage, uniforms and even advertising campaigns - as if it could be preserved for all time.

Today, the rules are often no longer collected in thick binders, but in the online brand guide, and thus theoretically a bit more flexible. In reality, the evolution is essentially defining style guides for web, mobile apps, interactive presentations, email signatures, social media guidelines and everything else on the www planet.

Guidelines for brands are still necessary, more so than ever with the proliferation of communication channels. They help avoid marketing chaos and keep brands from disappearing into the black hole of the vast communications universe.

But even with a CI plant, brands can sink into holes if they don't excite people and inspire people.

And this challenge already arises with internal communication about and for the brand. Admittedly, it's difficult not to sound like an educational guide or a bureaucratic EU regulation when describing what not to do with a logo. CI guidelines are therefore usually dry as dust, unfortunately. Even for companies that define their brand mentality as authentic, human and trustworthy.

However, there are already examples that prove that it can be done differently. Brand manuals, short, concise, focused on the essential, unique and above all inspiring.

For example Lipton, who turned their global marketing team into brand fans with the "Lipton Millionaire" iPhone app, or Arcelor Mittal, who successfully introduced the new guidelines with a short video on the Arcelor Mittal Brand Elements and inspired the employees.

The B2B brand strategy video by Godfrey, the American B2B partner agency of Wächter & Wächter Worldwide Partners, also creates positive energy and turns agency employees into brand ambassadors. (This article, by the way, grew out of a shared discussion about this video).

These examples show that it takes little more effort, but instead creativity, to turn boring, cautionary CI guidelines into inspiring brand guides. Go for it, it's worth it.