This is how you bring mass and scalability together, without losing your creativity

The combination of creativity, corporate identity and economies of scale sounds like an impossible one. But if you have your building blocks in place, you can give free rein to creativity and originality and still work efficiently and in accordance with the corporate identity. Utopia? Definitely not!

The house style book is dead

For some marketers it is still fresh in their minds, for others it will sound like a history lesson: once we worked with a corporate identity manual. A book made of real paper that smelled like real ink. In it were laid down all the guidelines and instructions for the corporate identity and all its elements. What is our tone of voice, what must photography comply with, how may the logo be used, with which font, what is the ratio of white space to text for the various expressions and what are the corporate identity colors, in Pantone, cmyk, rgb as well as hex code? Often the handbook was accompanied by a CD or USB stick, which contained the company logo and possibly the brand logos in all permissible color schemes and different resolutions. That brandbook was sent to all sorts of parties who had to work with it and it then ended up in the bottom desk drawer and no one looked at it anymore.

Long live the corporate identity!

Of course, in today's digital age, things can be different. With a brand portal you have an interactive environment in which you can interactively bring your corporate identity, your brand philosophy, your branding and all other elements to the attention of everyone involved. The 'talk' about your brand. If you combine that with a digital asset management system - the picture - you immediately make all the building blocks available to whoever needs them. Want the picture even more complete? Then a template-driven way of working is a great way to make the process of collaborating, sharing, editing and approving projects easier and more fun.

Balance between economies of scale and personalized content

Of course, such a way of working is not for everyone. The butcher on the corner also creates content, but will have less need for a digital asset management system and a brand portal. But for the somewhat larger organizations, working with external parties such as advertising agencies and photographers, this will be music to their ears. After all, every CMO knows the dilemma: you want to offer your - potential - customer the most personalized experience possible while maximizing economies of scale. Within your corporate identity, of course. By having your building blocks in order, you can give free rein to your creativity and originality and still remain efficient and compliant with the corporate identity. In this way, your identity remains recognizable to your target group while at the same time you can approach that target group very personally.

In practice

A large, Dutch travel company produces a vacation magazine for its customers. If you book a stay, you get that magazine in the mail a week before departure. In it you can read as a visitor what is going on in and around your destination during your stay. Traditionally, that magazine looked the same for all visitors in the same period. Logical, because mass production is cheap. But an older couple without children is obviously interested in different things than a couple with small children or a father with two adolescent daughters. By working with a brand portal and a digital asset management system, based on a template, you can put together target group-specific content. The layout remains the same, but the content changes for each target group. This is how mass and scalability come together, without losing your unique brand image.

Want to know more?

Are you interested in creating audience-specific content that always conforms to your corporate identity? Looking for a better balance between creativity and reusing best practices? You can do so by combining our digital asset management system with one - or more - of our other modules. Contact us for a free demo on location. We are happy to think along with you.