Does brand consistency in the distributed environment really matter?
The most successful multi-located brands know that brand consistency means everything when it comes to successful franchise marketing. In fact, recent reports indicate that well-managed and consistent brands may be worth up to 20% more than competitors.
Unfortunately, building a consistent brand is easier said than done.
Avoid These 4 Common Threats to Brand Consistency
A brand inconsistency can have a negative impact on brand equity and, in turn, dramatically influence profits. A simple marketing ripple at the local level can cause significant disruptions to the brand at the national and global levels.
"Brands are built through the consistent delivery of the brand promise through all stakeholder touch points," says William Arruda, contributor at Forbes. "It is the consistent, desired experience that builds trust and trust is the foundation for loyalty and promotion."
As your brand forges its path to marketing greatness, avoid these four common threats to brand consistency:
1. No Brand Standards Guide
As you know, a brand standards guide is the North Star that corporate and local marketers follow to activate on-brand creative. A well-developed brand standards guide is an essential tool for establishing a brand identity, building brand equity, and delivering marketing consistency across the distributed network.
Without a brand standards guide, your local marketers will likely struggle with marketing consistency. Think about it this way – if you don't have any rules or guidelines when it comes to logo usage, what's stopping your local marketing teams from scaling and resizing the logo file?
2. Communication Across Time Zones
Depending on the size of your enterprise, communication across time zones can threaten brand consistency. For example, if one of your local marketers in London needed a creative file from one of your corporate designers in San Francisco, the request will likely take a few business days to fulfill simply due to the time difference.
In this scenario, your local marketer might take matters into their own hands and try to create something that meets his or her needs. Unfortunately, there's a strong likelihood that he or she will create something that doesn't align with the brand.
Related: When Local Marketers Go Rogue: 4 Results of Non-Compliant Brands
3. Multiple Marketing Software and Systems
Is your martech stack stifling the effectiveness and efficiency of your marketing? Too many marketing software tools and systems is actually a detriment to your multi-located enterprise. In fact, recent studies indicate that eight out of ten corporate marketers will look to reduce the number of marketing technologies that are used. Too many marketing tools can lead to miscommunication, disorganization, and more. Ultimately, this creates brand consistency challenges.
To remedy this situation, consider replacing legacy marketing technology all-in-one solutions like CampaignDrive. CampaignDrive improves brand integrity, consistency, and accelerates time-to-market will decreasing production costs.
4. Language Barriers
Finally, language barriers across the distributed network threaten brand consistency. Think about it this way – if your corporate designers speak French and your local marketers speak Portuguese, imaging how difficult it would be to ask for a simple design file. This causes headaches for both corporate and local teams alike.
In this scenario, brand management tools make it simple and easy for corporate teams to upload creative. Your local marketers can then access this creative and add a touch of localization. It's that simple!
Make Franchise Marketing Consistency Easy With CampaignDrive
CampaignDrive is a distributed marketing platform that helps corporate and local marketing and design teams to collaborate and streamline the creative asset production process. The most successful distributed organizations know that CampaignDrive makes marketing consistency easy.
CampaignDrive empowers corporate design and marketing teams to develop and distribute on-brand assets that local marketing teams can easily access and customize, eliminating the need for corporate teams to respond to one-off requests.
To learn more about our brand management tool, we recommend registering for a free interactive demo.
