If ever the issue of Brand Development and Management rears its 'oh, so important' head, I'm normally at the front of the queue flying 'branded' flags…big time.

Strong, highly focused Branding has to be the major foundation of all long-term advertising and marketing campaigns to help create that instant recognition of a product or service and, vitally, with the correct and uniform perception that you demand.

I usually explain this to advertisers using simple analogies.

1. Imagine you are a Sales Rep and you visit a prospective client, present your company or product, chat to him or her for 30 minutes, then go.

A week or two later you return to the client, unannounced, except you are now wearing a false beard, dark glasses, and speaking with a strange accent.

Initially, they possibly won't recognise you at all and you'll need to re-introduce yourself (remember me?) and then
re-present your sales pitch leaving them rather confused.

2. Alternatively, let's imagine that you are one of a pair of Sales reps and, as before, you have visited and presented to that same prospective client and your presentation is heavily based on the high quality and craftsmanship of your luxury high-end product.

A week or two later, your colleague calls on the same prospective client but glosses over the alleged high quality of the product and harps on manically about the unbeatably low trade cost, huge discounts and easy payment terms, and then goes leaving them even more confused – because you have presented, in perception terms, two completely different products.

Not clever at all, so why do exactly the same with your advertising?

So to help create this brand we need to keep a very tight rein of its usage (hence, Brand Management) and the larger the product or company the more there is a need for greater discipline, rules and regulations.

Enter The Corporate Manual.

Having worked on giant multi-national accounts (British Airways, Proctor & Gamble, Cadbury-Schweppes) I have certainly had many a huge corporate tome bowing my office shelves instructing me where I can or can't put their logo, specified to the millimetre.

And it isn't just multi-nationals who possess the dreaded 'CM'

Any large company that advertises regularly needs the disciplines of continuity and uniformity within their branding and that solid branding can only really be protected with the rigid rules & regs of The Corporate Manual.

The dangers of having a Corporate Manual-less brand are quite clear, particularly when we are dealing with multi-nationals and advertising material is being produced in branches, studios, suppliers and distributors all over the world.

In these cases it's almost a cert that logos, typefaces, colours, imagery, features & benefits and the required company stance will drift off in all directions at the whim of a distant designer or executive.

So, to ensure this doesn't happen, we have The Corporate Manual and long shall they reign to guarantee that everyone 'sings from the same song sheet'.

However, as always with such imperative but tedious items, there is a problem.

And that is, virtually every The Corporate Manual I've ever seen appears to have been created by individuals who are a) more concerned with the stringent, almost Draconian 'set in stone' commandments than the eventual usage and reasons of the advertising material (i.e. to attract, excite and sell product) and b) have probably never actually worked in an advertising or marketing environment.

If they had, they would have understood that press and magazines ads come in thousands of different space sizes, shapes and formats; outdoor material requires different content and design aspects depending on size, location and strategy...and so on.

I have, on so many occasions, seen an ad weakened or aesthetically harmed because of the too-rigid restrictions imposed by the 'Manual'.

So here we have a double-edged sword.

To produce powerful, highly focused advertising that continues to surprise and interest we need a constantly refreshing conveyor belt of ideas with as few hand-cuffs and restrictions as possible.

To produce a powerful, long-term, instantly recognisable brand we need the tight disciplines of The Corporate Manual and, as is so often the case with large companies, a department to police it.

So is there an answer?

Of course. Commonsense can prevail and often does.

Corporate Manuals and Company 'stance' should be created and produced largely involving those who 'do' rather than by those who 'look on' thus allowing for far more versatility, yet still within fairly rigid parameters.

This is not to signal an open season for rule-breaking, but to produce rules that offer greater creative fluidity which is imperative in on-going Brand Development, something which many of the world's most historically successful companies (brands!) such as Volkswagen and Proctor & Gamble understood decades ago.

So there we have it – The Corporate Police.

They're possibly a little like Traffic Wardens – usually doing a pretty important job and yet occasionally needing a damn good kick up the…

David Wood. 2009