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Got Brand? Start Building Your Brand Book Today!
"Got Brand?" is provided to you compliments of Hopkins Printing. Visit us online at
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At Hopkins Printing, we touch dozens of brands daily through the production and delivery of your marketing in both print and digital formats. We help you engage your clients using the most powerful tool you have, your BRAND! Today, we want to offer a reminder to take the time to review your brand guidelines. And if you don’t already have one, we invite you to build your organizations first Brand Book. Visit hopkinsprinting.com/gotbrand to download three Brand Book worksheets to get you started.
What is a Brand? Four Pillars of a Brand:
Difference Relevance Esteem Knowledge
“Put simply, your “brand” is what your prospect thinks of when he or she hears your brand name. It’s everything the public thinks it knows about your name brand offering—both factual (e.g. It comes in a robin’s-egg-blue box), and emotional (e.g. It’s romantic). Your brand name exists objectively; people can see it. It’s fixed. But your brand exists only in someone’s mind.” Jerry McLaughlin, Forbes Magazine
Table of Contents What is a Brand Book?
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15 Key Elements of a Brand Book Page 6
What is a Brand Book?
Here at Hopkins Printing, we can’t overemphasize the importance of brand consistency and having a brand strategy. It increases awareness, and cements an emotional connection between the consumer and your brand. By any name, a Brand Book [Brand Style Guide, Visual Identity System, Brand Standards] is a document that sets the standards for how your brand is presented and referenced in all of your marketing, both online and offline. Brand and Style Guides can range from a single page to dozens of pages. Regardless of the size of your company, the length of the document, or the amount of information required, the most important rule is to keep it simple, precise and current.
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Your Brand Guide should: Be accessible and understandable for every employee Define and document your visual and emotional identity Provide for visual consistency across all marketing platforms Be a reference guide for business partners, ad agencies, graphic designers, website designers, employees, executives, volunteers, and all third-party production and marketing partners
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15 Key Elements of a Brand Book 6
1. Brand Narrative Your narrative is your story. It pulls people in and makes them want to associate themselves with your brand. Employees become ambassadors; media promotes you; and stakeholders want to become a part of your living story.
2. Brand History Every company has been shaped by moments of inspiration and perseverance. Your company history should feature the most compelling of these moments, along with significant achievements. These help to lend context and depth to the brand and begin to frame your position. You want the authenticity of the brand to shine through and not sound like a contrived marketing position that has been created, rather than lived. Putting your history in the form of a simple timeline is a great idea!
What to include: Why your company was started A brief profile of the founders Major turning points in your company’s life Amusing and inspirational events that have occurred along the way
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Brand Identity Your Brand Identity is carried throughout all mediums of communications through the intelligent use of color, typography, images, tone of voice, and copy. It is the visible elements of a brand that identify and distinguish the brand in the mind of the consumer. It includes brand values, attriÂbutes, personality and brand position.
3. Core Brand Value Keywords
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Articulating your core values will help everyone in your company become a brand advocate. They are a list of words that are developed and used internally to clarify who you are and what you stand for, direct and influence an organizations conduct, and ground the entire organization in the same behaviors and beliefs. You should have between 4 and 8 brand values that align with your company, your vision and your employees.
4. Brand Personality Keywords Your brand personality is your emotional identity. It surrounds your brand and influences the tone, style, attitude and look of your communications. Brand personalities give consumers something to which they can relate to. Examples include: formal, trendy, urban, passive, casual, earthy, daring, intelligent, imaginative, tough, or subtle.
5. Brand Position Brand positioning is the activity of creating a brand offer and identity in a way that it occupies a distinct place and value in the consumers mind. A brand positioning statement should contain four key elements: [1] target market (for whom), [2] market space you compete in (service or product), [3]Â brand promise (emotional or rational benefits), [4] reasons to believe.
6. Company Information Boilerplate  Have a standard boilerplate to be used for all press releases and other media/ journalistic references and events.
7. Typeface Standards Define typefaces and document which types of fonts are used for headline, sub-headlines and in content. Show primary and secondary fonts. Include web typeface standards.
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Customers and prospects are continually interacting with various aspects of your brand as they gather information, form impressions and make decisions. Positioning is what marketers do to reinforce or modify this single-minded, user-centric perception.
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8. Color Standards Include color palettes and how they should be used. Specify primary and secondary colors. Provide PMS colors, screen build percentages from CMYK, and acceptable screen percentages and gradient screens that can be used if applicable. Also provide any “DOs and DON’Ts” for color combinations.
9. Logo Standards Document your logos for print and online work, and specify sizing and placement. Provide variations, clarify how the logos can and can’t be used and provide “use and misuse” examples to show the logos in acceptable form.
10. Stationery Standards Provide specific layout guidelines for all approved stationery products.
11. Tone, Voice, Copywriting Style
13. Web-based Buttons, Tags, Badges, and Icons
It is critical that your brand voice be consistent across all of your marketing materials and platforms. Define your tone and voice, and provide examples. Remember to refer back to your brand personality and keywords.
If you’re working closely with web designers and developers, you may consider including items such as small and large icons, tags, tables, arrows, basic buttons and social media buttons.
12. Graphic Imagery Guidelines Photographs and images establish and reinforce your brand tone and personality in both print and online. Choices include vector art, illustrations, photography, graphs, grids and layouts. Keep your illustrated style clear, and demonstrate through examples and tips how to construct page layouts using imagery in the context of design.
14. Website, e-mail and e-blast Guidelines Web guidelines provide for consistency across your entire online presence. From button styles to navigation structure, you should provide specifications for layout, styling, typefaces, signatures, links and logo usage in digital formats.
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15. Social Media Profile Page Applications Social media profiles are the latest entry into the Brand Guidelines game. It is very important that these be written following the same voice and tone already established, and also are consistent with the positioning of your brand. Provide a company profile to your employees and brand ambassadors for them to use throughout their personal social media platforms when identifying and describing your company.
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2246 CityGate Drive Columbus, OH 43219 800.319.3352 hopkinsprinting.com
Visit hopkinsprinting.com/got-brand to download our worksheet templates to guide your team through the process of identifying and building the content for your Brand Book.
Looking for a marketing partner to help deliver your brand? For more than 38 years, Hopkins Printing has served the print and communications needs of our esteemed clients. And as they have grown, our services and capabilities have grown with them! Offset Printing Mailing/Shipping Wide Format Printing Promotionals Digital Printing Bindery
© The Advisement Center 2013. All Rights Reserved.
Sources: 2013 Business.com beloved-brands.com
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