For the uninitiated, achieving brand consistency may be perceived as simply slapping your logo on every piece of marketing collateral but for those of us who practise the white magic/dark art (you decide) of event marketing, there’s a lot more to consider and make happen. The brand should flow through the event and shape every touchpoint.

Let’s take a look at 6 things to consider when trying to achieve brand consistency.

1. What is your event brand?

In an ideal world, your event brand personality would have been explored, agreed and mapped out along with your Pantone references, fonts, logo options and other elements of your brand identity from the very beginning. If not then it’s highly advisable to give it some proper consideration at the earliest opportunity to ensure consistency across your campaign. Everyone who interacts with your event will gain an impression of it, so developing and delivering a consistent and compelling brand experience is our objective here. You need to establish what you want your brand to represent, what the personality of the event should be, your point of difference, and who your stakeholders are and what you want them to think when your event comes to mind. Your target audience is key to how tightly you define your brand and how broad you want it to appeal. This requires some soul-searching, research and commitment.

2. Working with a licensed brand?

If you’re working with a licensed brand it’s worth taking time to get to know the brand from the outset. This may have been done as part of a pitch, but if not, perhaps ask the license-holder for useful information such as brand guidelines and existing communications material. It’s worth signing up for any newsletters associated with the brand so you’re always up to speed with other activity they’re involved in and it can help you “live” the brand. Getting clued up  early on can reduce artwork costs and save time as well as promoting consistency, as artwork should be more compliant and signed off quicker.          

3. Be adequately prepared

Getting your brand nailed down sooner rather than later is time well spent. Getting the clarity up front will not only aid consistency but will save time later when you’re fully embroiled in the detail of the campaign, your phone is ringing off the hook and your inbox is bursting at the seams. All too soon you’ll be briefing in creative, setting up ticketing and pushing out event information to all your stakeholders.

The brand experience for all stakeholders starts with your stakeholders’ first interaction with the event, be that a call from the sales or operations teams, picking up an event leaflet, receiving an email or seeing a social media post, so it’s important to get your story together from the off. Language is a key element of this so exploring the tone of voice, writing style and vocabulary as part of developing your brand should shape all your communications.   

It’s also vital that your wider event team understand your brand as they will be the key protagonists in delivering a consistent brand experience in their day to day interactions with stakeholders. Depending on your organisation’s culture, briefing the team on your brand can be done in team meetings, marketing presentations or by circulating emails. Whichever route you choose, set out the essential points you want your team to take away and keep it brief. Visual references such as copies of the ads can often aid understanding and retention.          

Once you’ve established the parameters of the brand you can equip yourself with all the tools you need to deliver brand consistency across all touch points whilst getting on with the day job of promoting your event to secure exhibitors, sponsors and visitors.

4. Get yourself organised to save time

Saving your key assets such as your logo in all formats, brand guidelines, core images, event video, USPs, key messages/values and carefully crafted and approved copy in one easily accessible place can be a major help in the thick of the campaign. Whether you’re inviting exhibitors to promote their presence at your event, briefing agencies, setting up event listings or providing key event information to your venue, you can systematically sail through these tasks using the brand toolkit you’ve created and the recipients then have the assets they need to communicate your brand in the way that you want.

5. Entrusting your brand to others

Getting the message out far and wide means that other people will then sometimes become caretakers of your brand. Providing them with appropriate assets as mentioned above, offering guidelines such as minimum 5mm of white space on all sides of your logo, providing examples of compliant marketing material and asking to see a proof before something is published can all help to ensure your event brand is presented in the right way when the communication vehicle is beyond your direct control.      

6. Achieving universal consistency

The brand is a factor that every aspect of your event contributes to, from the look and feel, catering offering and profile of exhibitors, to the choice of entertainment, signage and how enquiries are dealt with. Team meetings provide a good opportunity to discuss non-marketing brand issues as well as bringing your team up to speed on any developments.

As well as pushing out the right information and assets, and getting people on board with the brand, the marketing team will need to police all touchpoints throughout the campaign.  As the show content grows and develops, your messaging will need to be updated to encapsulate the latest event offering and positioning.

In Conclusion

As with all event marketing, there is no one sure fire way to deliver brand consistency. Only by working through effective preparation, staying true to your brand throughout the campaign and by giving people the assets, information and understanding to produce on-brand communication will you ensure a true end to end brand consistency across your event.