Because there’s a fine line between being recognisable and becoming wallpaper.
Somewhere in a marketing department, right now, someone is having a serious conversation about whether a social media graphic uses the right shade of blue.
The colour has been carefully selected. It has a reference number. It appears in a 196-page brand guidelines document, alongside instructions concerning logo placement, typography and the precise circumstances under which a photograph of a smiling businessperson may be used.
Everything is beautifully consistent.
Unfortunately, nobody is paying attention.
Welcome to one of branding’s more peculiar problems.
We’ve become so obsessed with making everything look the same that we’ve forgotten the importance of being noticed.
Consistency Is Good. Invisibility Isn’t.
Brand consistency has a perfectly sensible purpose.
Recognisable colours, logos, typography and other distinctive assets help people identify and remember a business.
That’s useful.
You wouldn’t want Coca-Cola to change its name, logo, and packaging every Wednesday because someone in Marketing attended an inspirational webinar.
But consistency isn’t repetition.
A brand can be recognisable without producing the same type of content, using the same imagery, or delivering every message in precisely the same way.
Unfortunately, some businesses interpret consistency as a requirement to ensure that absolutely nothing unexpected ever happens.
The result is a brand that behaves rather like a very polite accountant at a particularly dull dinner party.
Perfectly respectable.
Entirely predictable.
And almost impossible to remember afterwards.
The Brand Guidelines Have Taken Control
Brand guidelines should help people create effective communications.
They shouldn’t become a sacred document that prevents anyone from having an interesting idea.
Yet we’ve all encountered organisations where creativity must first survive a lengthy approval process.
A marketer suggests something different.
Perhaps a humorous campaign. An unusual photograph. A slightly unexpected headline. Immediately, someone asks: “But is it on brand?”
Which is a reasonable question.
Until it becomes shorthand for: “We’ve never done that before, and I’d prefer we didn’t start now.”
Eventually, the safest possible marketing is produced.
Nobody objects.
Nobody complains.
Nobody notices.
A complete administrative triumph.
Recognition and Attention Are Different Things
Here’s the distinction that matters.
Consistency helps people recognise your brand. Creativity gives them a reason to notice it.
You need both.
A distinctive visual identity can help customers connect different pieces of communication to the same business. But if every advert, email and social media post looks and sounds identical, audiences may learn to ignore them.
Think of it like music.
A band can have a recognisable sound without releasing the same song 47 times.
Admittedly, some have built a remarkably successful career trying exactly that.
The best brands develop recognisable characteristics while finding fresh and interesting ways to express them.
Their identity stays familiar.
Their communication doesn’t become predictable.
Your Brand Doesn’t Need to Wear the Same Jumper Every Day
Imagine meeting someone who wore the same outfit, told the same jokes, and repeated the same stories every time you saw them.
You’d certainly recognise them.
You might also begin crossing the street.
Brands face a similar challenge.
They need a consistent identity, but they also need personality, variety and the occasional surprise.
That might mean experimenting with humour, changing creative formats, introducing different perspectives or telling stories that don’t look like everything else you’ve published.
None of this requires abandoning your brand.
It requires understanding which elements make your brand recognisable and which elements can evolve.
Consistency should provide the foundations for creativity, not the handcuffs.
Perhaps It’s Time to Be a Little Less Predictable
If your marketing has become an endless procession of identical templates, familiar stock photographs and carefully approved corporate statements, it might be time to ask a difficult question.
Are we being consistent because it helps customers recognise us?
Or because it’s easier than trying something different?
Good branding isn’t about making every communication identical.
It’s about creating something distinctive enough to be remembered, flexible enough to remain interesting and recognisable enough that people know who’s speaking.
Because the objective isn’t to produce the world’s most consistently branded marketing.
It’s to produce marketing that people actually notice, remember and associate with your business.
And sometimes that means changing your jumper.
Want to Know Whether Your Brand Is Consistent or Just Boring?
In Episode 16 of The Overthinker’s Guide to Modern Marketing Podcast, I explore why brand consistency doesn’t have to mean endless repetition, how to protect what makes your business distinctive, and why delivering a consistently good customer experience matters more than perfectly matching shades of blue.
Another useful question to ask: If you removed your logo, would people still know it was you?
