The Eyelet.

We hear this all the time: “I just want to make sure everything looks the same.” Sounds like a pretty good idea. But, offering consistently poor communications isn’t any better than delivering a steady stream of inconsistent ones. Ultimately, a lot of branding efforts and rebranding programs fail for precisely this reason — organizations spend all their time focusing on whether the corporate identity is being used properly rather than ensuring that their brands are providing a consistent experience to the customer. That’s not to say that brand consistency isn’t important. Rather the contrary. Ultimately, the world’s leading brands are focused on delivering a consistent feeling to the customer through their brand communications and brand experience. A good example is Urban Outfitters.Few Urban Outfitters stores share the exact same store design. Yet, they all feel alike. The company’s been known to regularly change the look-and-feel of its brand communications. In fact, often it radically changes the visual design language of its product catalogs with almost every issue. Over the past 3-4 years, the company has introduced so many design looks for its corporate identity and corporate website design it’s difficult to imagine the pace. Yet, rarely do these design changes lead the brand astray. This is because the brand maintains a consistent focus on the feeling it’s hoping to create in the consumer. This feeling places the consumer at the front of popular culture and consumer style. As a result, the brand manages to feel as at home on the campus of The Ohio State University as it does in Wicker Park, Chicago. Delivering a consistent feeling to the consumer is good. Providing a consistent brand experience is even better. Just don’t be fooled into believing that making everything look the same is the cornerstone of effective branding.(examples below)