{"id":143628,"date":"2023-08-21T09:50:42","date_gmt":"2023-08-21T08:50:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/?p=143628"},"modified":"2024-01-10T15:32:08","modified_gmt":"2024-01-10T14:32:08","slug":"brand-personality-in-practice-assembling-your-assets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/brand-personality-in-practice-assembling-your-assets\/","title":{"rendered":"Brand personality in practice: Assembling your assets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brand personality portrays the traits and emotions your customers associate with your business. A whole team, multiple departments, even a number of brands under one company umbrella can share a brand personality<\/a>. That\u2019s a lot of people communicating across a myriad of avenues. That comes with plenty of opportunities to go wrong. <\/strong><\/p>\n

A team tooled-up with what they need to communicate in one voice will be able to adapt depending on situation, audience, platform and the wider industry context at play.<\/p>\n

They need a toolbox to work from, and this includes assets – a bank of logos, social cards, templates and guidelines to use. Here\u2019s how to get these assembled to communicate and reinforce your brand personality:<\/p>\n

A single source of truth<\/h3>\n

Brand guidelines that are clear and easily accessible to all who will be communicating on behalf of, or as, the brand are essential. No hasty guess work or last minute creativity will be needed in times of calm, or crisis if everything is already laid out:<\/p>\n

\u2018Guidelines and messaging frameworks can take time to create, but they\u2019re an essential part of aligning messaging across all departments,\u2019 says DivideBuy<\/a>\u2019s senior content and PR manager Heather Wilkinson.<\/p>\n

\u2018Collaborate together to agree on tone of voice, words to use and avoid, and official spelling and grammar guidance. Having a single source of truth document is great practice and allows everyone to move forward with confidence.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018To avoid PR and comms teams sounding like a bunch of tone-deaf amateurs, here’s the secret: create guidelines, and stick to ’em,\u2019 adds Jade Arnell, founder of Rebellion Marketing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2018Establish a clear tone-of-voice that mirrors your brand’s personality. Are you a sassy rebel or a refined intellectual?\u2019<\/p>\n

What should brand guidelines look like?<\/h3>\n

\u2018A brand style guide or a company communications handbook,\u2019 says Rosser Jones, head of PR at Unlimit<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2018This guide should be used to restructure or redraft the company\u2019s entire communications, internal and external, and it needs to be followed by everyone from the CEO to middle managers and the business development team.\u2019<\/p>\n

For external comms, make sure the guide is easy to work from by making it as concise as possible, says Tank<\/a>\u2019s head of PR Martyn Gettings. Include fonts, brand colours, which logos to use where:<\/p>\n

\u2018Having external PR messages clarified on a single page for each client is a great way to ensure consistency across all comms. These messages are created with the core brand identity in mind, so you can be confident that they are a solid basis for the vast majority of communications. This will help the brand personality filter down through the whole team and ensure it remains authentic.\u2019<\/p>\n

Double-check: Is everyone onboard?<\/h3>\n

No brand personality is going to work with its intended audience if it smacks of inauthenticity – a cause of this could be team members with a reluctance to use assets they didn\u2019t sign off on. Those at the c-suite level being hesitant to embrace and reinforce new guidelines also won\u2019t help:<\/p>\n

\u2018When launching a new brand personality, or updating an existing one, it can also be helpful to have a robust internal approval process with brand champions available to ensure nothing goes out the door which isn\u2019t aligned with the brand guidelines,\u2019 says Laura Price, partner at Pagefield<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2018While this can seem painful at the time, consistency and dedication to showing up with a unified brand personality is the only way to truly embed it within the audience\u2019s perceptions.\u2019<\/p>\n

All aboard (E.g. agencies)<\/h3>\n

Ensuring an in-house team is all communicating in one voice is challenging enough. But what if you\u2019re bringing in an external agency to communicate for your brand?<\/p>\n

\u2018When an agency is brought on to support a brand’s PR and communications activity, it’s vital to introduce processes that support consistent and aligned messaging,\u2019 says Jess Farmery, PR lead at SomX<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2018This can be achieved incredibly effectively with the right support mechanisms in place. During the agency’s onboarding, dedicate time to explaining and exploring your brand guidelines, tone of voice, any ‘dos and don’ts’, and contextualised examples.<\/p>\n

\u2018Following this, ensure that everyone is provided with easy-to-access reference documents, templates, and further examples of how your brand guideless translate into communication content across several different channels.\u2019<\/p>\n

Bringing everyone on the journey (E.g. clients)
\nWhat about the other way around – when you\u2019re an agency who has put a personality together for a client? Here\u2019s advice from Mia Hodgekinson at Sway PR<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2018Communication is at the heart of all marketing and comms strategies, so we find that regular meetings and being kept up to speed on what they have coming up in their content calendar aligns or informs any PR activity we undertake.<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s really important to visualise yourself as another cog in a big wheel. We all have our roles to play and, while those roles are different, they all need to work together to achieve the end goal \u2013 driving awareness of a brand or company.\u2019<\/p>\n

Repeat until you\u2019re all singing from the same hymn sheet<\/h3>\n

Brand guidelines and the use of associated assets need time to be embedded into the muscle memory of your comms team, as well as in the culture of the company at large. This can only come with time, practice, and repetition, believes Laura at Pagefield.<\/p>\n

\u2018Companies need to allocate resource to focus on this, investing time in brand and messaging training to make sure everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet and is clear on the dos and don\u2019ts of the brand voice.\u2019<\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t mean army-like drills every morning (unless that works with your company\u2019s culture\u2026). More practically, infographics can be pinned up around the office and quick reference guidelines printed out for desks at home. Absolutely vital, whenever people are working from – a shared online resource to dip into, whenever needed.<\/p>\n

Refresher sessions<\/h3>\n

Those truly \u2018living\u2019 the brand personality in the day-to-day – social media managers replying to public enquiries, newsletter writers, campaign creators – will still need regular reminders of specifics as time goes on:<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s important to have regular brand\/messaging \u2018refresher\u2019 sessions. Encourage members of the team to demonstrate and share with their colleagues how they\u2019ve applied that tone of voice across a variety of different formats,\u2019 adds Laura.<\/p>\n

\u2018Many brands also stop after training staff members on the brand guidelines,\u2019 says FizzBox<\/a>\u2019s head of marketing Tom Bourlet.<\/p>\n

\u2018The next step should be regular quality checks. This isn’t about micromanaging, but simply ensuring everyone is communicating in the pertinent manner.\u2019<\/p>\n

Evolve and adapt<\/h3>\n

As times change, brand identity and assets will need to evolve:<\/p>\n

\u2018Remember to keep team members and agency partners abreast of any evolutions to your brand and communication guidelines,\u2019 says Jess at SomX.
\n\u2018The easiest way to do this is to schedule regular comms team all-hands sessions to share relevant updates. Listen to what your agency partners have to say regarding TOV, too – they are actioning the guidelines day in day out, which gives them a unique perspective on how the brand is cutting through and resonating with the media and with stakeholders.\u2019<\/p>\n

Review, review, review<\/h3>\n

Onboarding, training, and refresher sessions can only do so much – everyone makes mistakes. Just as there\u2019s safety in numbers, getting as many eyes as possible on content before it goes out can avert any dangers (be that typos, or something much worse).<\/p>\n

\u2018Before any content is published, it ought to go through a centralised review process to ensure consistency and alignment,\u2019 says Jess. \u2018Any edits should be collated and fed back to the relevant person(s).\u2019<\/p>\n

Have a \u2018The Buck Stops Here\u2019 person, or people, that have ultimate sign-off, or are available for advice and support to ensure words and imagery stay consistent throughout:<\/p>\n

\u2018\u2019Brand bibles are usually developed and maintained by brand guardians, which is a politer name than brand police,\u2019 says Susannah Morgan, deputy MD at Energy PR<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2018When a brand is fairly new, or the guidelines are really crucial to business success, then you have to be strict. It is very risky to leave any elements of brand application open to interpretation.<\/p>\n

\u2018Brands are built with consistency over time. Inconsistency is very damaging \u2013 it confuses the audience and prevents them knowing what to expect, so a clear brand is never formed. PR teams need to know what not to do, as well as what to do. What would a brand never do, look, or say, is often easier to remember than how to get it right.\u2019<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t forget: Measurement is also an asset\u2026<\/h3>\n

Yes, really:<\/p>\n

\u2018Including key brand messages in reporting processes as a KPI helps to ensure consistency in the long-term,\u2019 says Tank\u2019s head of PR Martyn Gettings.<\/p>\n

\u2018Reporting on the cut-through of brand messages on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis makes it easy to see which elements of your brand\u2019s personality resonate most with your key audiences. There is little point investing in a brand voice and personality unless its performance and impact are measured.\u2019<\/p>\n

Sign up for our the white paper \u2018Stand out from the crowd: A guide to personality-packed PR<\/a>\u2019 here for more on this topic. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brand personality portrays the traits and emotions your customers associate with your business – here\u2019s how to get a toolbox of assets assembled to communicate and reinforce your brand personality. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":423,"featured_media":143627,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7365,7238],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143628"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143628"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":145135,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143628\/revisions\/145135"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}