“Just Shrink the Logo to Get Everything to Fit.”
You probably already know that your brand—your company’s public image—is way more than a logo. But you probably didn’t know that your logo can be more than a logo.
“Huh?”
A professional logo is a great start. If you don’t have one, get one. Yesterday. But the logo “treatment,” its context in marketing materials, can magnify or diminish your logo’s impact.
Take this set of samples from Skyline Tent Company. It wasn’t enough to just put their logo on this postcard, magazine ad, and business card. They carefully placed this logo in identical locations and similar proportions. Their logo’s font is the same font in all of their ad text. The colors change to fit the mood of the pictures, but there’s no mistaking their corporate-looking brand that makes them seem some large franchised brand, even as a local small business.
It’s not enough to slap your logo on a piece. In fact, you can be hurting your public persona by branding inconsistency. (I see a lot of this in the auction industry; and I used to be a regular perpetrator of such malfeasance.)
See, “different” stands in your memory better than consistency. Right now, when you hear “David Letterman,” do you think “comedian” or “affair with staffers”? Now, most golf enthusiasts remember Greg Norman for a couple huge chokes more than his string of success as “The Shark.” For a time, Ford Explorers were more synonymous for “rollovers” than “category-leading sales.”
Using your logo flippantly won’t have such draconian effects, but it will separate you from a Fortune 500 feel. That perception of professionalism could be the deciding factor of who someone calls first about selling their property—you or your competitor.
In your local paper, ALWAYS keep your logo in the same place, the same size. If you can, keep the pictures, headlines, and auction times in the same place. On your brochures, brand the consistency of the layout itself. You might have different templates for your each size brochure or postcard, but they should all look like they go together. Your web site should match your marketing materials. Your fonts should transcend media. You should have on record your company colors in RGB, CMYK, and HTML.
You don’t have to exert OCD tendencies on your advertising. You could just cut your commission to get the work that would otherwise go to your better-branded competition.
[tip]
As Christ followers, we can have one of two responses to our mistakes. We can hide and hypocrisize—and (try to) deceive ourselves and others. Or we can admit and air our errors, acknowledging to others that we stepped out of the Jesus path.
Even the “man after God’s own heart,” David, couldn’t live a consistent life. Why should we think we can? In our marriage with Jesus, we will have both Caribbean-vacation romance and overtime-at-work distance. The world wants to see authentic response to imperfection more than the opaque coating of rose-colored syrup.
I’m not saying we give up on the idea of consistency, just that we embrace our mistakes as learning experiences for us and others. Jesus’ reputation isn’t fragile; he’s not worried about his name. (A day’s coming when every soul that ever lived will get that right.) Rather than run cover for our bare sins, why don’t we embrace the mercy and grace that others need for their foibles and brokenness?