‘Can we tweak it just this once?’

‘For this event / campaign / brochure maybe we could do things a bit differently in terms of how we look?’

For understandable reasons elements making up a brand are regularly changed slightly for particular occasions. It might be how the colour palette is used, or how the logo is placed, or any number of seemingly inconsequential tweaks that are variances on the original brand.

While it’s important to monitor the effectiveness of your brand’s assets and ensure they remain fit for purpose continuous tweaks, even if each one is itself small, can damage your brand.

Why is this?

No matter if you’re B2B or B2C – your goal must be to make sales if you are to survive.

In order to make sales your brand must be easy to buy. To be easy to buy you must build mental availability – you need to come to mind before your competition.

In ‘How Brands Grow’ this is examined in detail. As the authors explain, the quantity and quality of memory associations in a person’s mind related to your brand will determine how easily it’s recalled. These memory associations are not just your logo or name, although they can be. There are lots of different types of attributes which can form memory associations in people’s minds with a brand. A memory association for Coke for example, might be red and the font of the logo, for Nike – the swoosh and slogan, for ComparetheMarket – the meerkats.

What’s meant by quantity when it comes to memory associations is fairly obvious – the number of them a person has in mind about your brand. Quality meanwhile comes down to strength of association and the relevance of the attribute.

By being consistent with the elements which make up your brand you will therefore improve the strength of association in people’s minds.

So, while it can be tempting to make changes to fit a certain situation be careful with how often you do so. Your brand will always be at the top of your mind, by being consistent – showing up in the same way, by repeating over and over again the elements which make up your brand your brand will more easily and quickly be recalled by others.

If you’re a charity meanwhile your goal may not be to sell in the same way. However, brand consistency is still just as important. With so many calls on people’s time and money you need to be consistent so as to come to mind when people think about volunteering or donating.