What is a brand book and why is it needed?
Posted on January 9, 2023 • 3 minutes • 574 words • Other languages: Русский, Українська
Table of contents
A brand book is an official document of a company that describes the brand concept, brand attributes, target audience, company positioning and other information used by the sales department and company owners to form relationships with customers and grow the business in general.
As part of the brand book, there is a complete corporate style guide, which contains detailed recommendations for the use of all brand elements on a variety of media, both advertising and corporate.
A brand book is a description of the main elements of identity and brand attributes (essence, position, mission, philosophy, values, individuality). The idea of such a document is to structure all the ideological elements of the brand, create a logically built image of the brand, as well as detailed advice on its use in order to form a holistic understanding of the brand by the target audience.
What should be in a brand book?
The brand book must contain the following information:
1. Description and quality of the target audience;
2. Brand concept;
3. The original style of the company;
4. Brand promotion model (images of all advertising messages, advertising plots);
5. Corporate style of the company, communications within the company.
Problems that arise in the absence of a brand book
When a large company lacks a brand book, unexpected difficulties may arise. For example, designers, when creating actual advertising signs or booklets, will create something aimed at a different target audience.
Also, your logo may be used incorrectly. If you do not have a specific definition of how much the logo should be on different media, then be prepared for the fact that it will suddenly become wider or shorter than it should be.
A color scheme can suddenly change its hue or color, resulting in your ad suddenly looking very similar to your competitors’ ads.
In principle, the question of whether to create a brand book or not should not be considered. At the same time, it is important that both you and the brand book developer understand what should come out in the end.
