4 Stay consistent

4

STAY CONSISTENT

Once you’ve decided what your brand stands for, you should have a checklist to help you decide whether a new project or idea will help to take you in the direction you want your brand to go.

Even if you’ve never read a marketing textbook, or set foot inside a branding agency, you can probably spot when an organisation does something that just feels wrong. They’ve gone to the trouble of building a brand position in their market, then suddenly they do something weird that doesn’t seem to fi t with their usual behaviour. In brand dialect this is known as being inconsistent with your brand identity.

To stay consistent, memorise the checklist that defi nes who you are, and if you fi nd yourself straying away from it, guide yourself gently back to the right path.

The idea At New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) shop, every single item that you can buy there is a minor work of art itself. Instead of just being a place you strolled through on the way out to pick up a few souvenirs to remind you of your visit, it became a standalone art and design hub that people visit to buy beautiful things, independently of a trip to the museum. This was such a great idea that museums around the world have done the same thing. In the past, museum shops would offer a paltry selection of pencils and

rulers, coasters and tea towels with the museum’s name printed on, which you could buy to disappoint your relatives and friends. Now, museums like Baltic, the Science Museum and the National Gallery all have shops whose contents, although not quite as rare and valuable as the exhibits, are equally interesting and beautiful.

My favourite failure was a furniture shop with a small display of hand-knitted toys in one corner of the window. Someone must have thought it was a great idea, and maybe they did occasionally sell a toy, but they must have frightened off furniture customers by doing something so odd that it raised questions about their ability to make rational decisions.

In practice • Use your brand values as a reference. When you’re presented with a new idea, especially if it seems a good fi nancial prospect, check that it’s consistent with your brand values. If it isn’t, you might want to decide against it. • If you get the feeling that there’s something not quite convincing about the decision you’re facing, go over your brand values again. It’s probably not consistent. • Review your brand values once in a while. Times change; your customers’ needs change. If you fi nd that the new ideas presented to you always share a common inconsistency with your brand values, perhaps it’s time to tweak your values to match the changing times. Once every fi ve years ought to be about right.