Brand  Consistency  v  Coherence  You  probably  won’t  get  many  marke;ng  folk  that  will  argue  with  a  need  for  consistency  in  your  brand  communica;ons.  The  original  argument  for  this  (at  least  from  what  I  can  remember)  is  that  each  piece  of  communica;on  re-­‐enforces  the  brand  image  that  you  want  to  convey.  Makes  sense.      Smart  marketers  like  Byron  Sharp  and  David  Taylor  have  wriFen  about  brand  managers  focusing  on  being  ‘dis$nc$ve’  rather  than  aiming  for  the  more  difficult-­‐to-­‐achieve  ‘differen$a$on’.  Being  consistent  will  remind  people  you  exist  and  keep  you  top  of  mind,  which  is  hopefully  helpful  when  they  are  in  a  purchasing  mode.  [I’m  paraphrasing  but  their  books  are  both  worth  a  read:  “How  brand  grow”  and  “Grow  the  core”.]    The  challenge  I’ve  found  from  a  prac;cal  perspec;ve  is  that  if  we  bow  completely  to  ‘consistency’  over  everything  else,  it  can  be  difficult  to  get  the  message  cut  through.  People  think  they’ve  see  the  ad  before,  as  looks  the  same.  Or  it  all  becomes  a  bit  boring,  same,  same.      We  ini;ally  spent  a  lot  of  ;me  trying  to  figure  this  out  for  the  48  brand  when  we  created  it.  It  is  probably  too  early  to  say  if  our  approach  is  ul;mately  successful,  although  our  communica;on  scores  so  far  suggest  it  is  working.  We’ll  see  I  guess.        

Our  thinking  and  subsequent  approach  with  the  48  brand  is  that  our  brand  idea  is  very  coherent.  It  is  a  coming-­‐of-­‐age  brand  that  celebrates  and  shines  a  light  on  the  48  months  between  your  18th  and  22nd  birthday.  It  has  a  posi;ve  outlook  on  this,  captured  with  a  tagline  “Go  Conquer”.      We  agreed  that  from  the  start  that  we  would  constantly  re-­‐enforce  the  brand  proposi;on,  as  is  based  on  a  genuine  insight  and  because  it  is  rich  territory  with  lots  of  fun  ways  in  to  talk  about  it.  We’ve  done  this  consistently  in  our  TV  adver;sing.  But  because  the  brand  is  coherent  and  understood,  we  felt  we  could  flex  our  treatment  style,  allowing  us  to  experiment  a  lot  while  s;ll  staying  consistent  (for  the  reasons  men;oned  earlier).      This  is  what  we’ve  done.  We  have  some  brand  cues  like  our  logo,  our  slate  background  which  always  has  a  rip  /  tear.  But  apart  from  that  we’ve  changed  our  font,  colours,  treatment  style  radically  in  each  campaign.      Because  it  is  difficult  to  convey  a  brand  proposi;on  in  outdoor  (OOH)  in  addi;on  to  the  sales  message,  compared  to  say  TV,  we’ve  used  our  tagline  ‘Go  Conquer’  as  the  headline  in  every  execu;on.  This  requires  some  discipline  but  so  far  we’ve  resisted  changing.  So,  while  our  OOH  looks  very  different  campaign  to  campaign  –  we  seem  to  get  cut-­‐through  while  building  on  previous  campaigns.    

Brand  proposi+on  way  in:  “Things  happen  when  you  turn  18.”    Feb  2012  –  launch  campaign.  

Brand  proposi+on  way  in:  “Serious  can  wait  $ll  you’re  22.”    Sept  2012  

Brand  proposi+on  way  in:  “Mistakes  make  beCer  stories.”    April  2013