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brand book and guidelines in branding: key differences and how to use them

Imagine that your company has opened a branch in another city. The marketer at the new location will need to order printed materials for office decoration, signage, launch an advertising campaign, prepare new employees by explaining the principles and values of the company. How do you avoid turning this process into a real test with endless approvals and clarifications?

To do this, we need a brand book and a guideline. However, they will be needed not only to open a new branch. As we know, a brand is a combination of a large number of elements: values, design, standards, images, words, processes. Sometimes in the process of developing a brand, we lose these values. To avoid this, we need guides that describe the created systems: a brand book and a guideline.

Where does the confusion come from?

Metaphorically speaking, a brand book is a big matryoshka doll, and a guideline is a smaller, but full-fledged, doll inside it. As a result, a guideline is part of a brand book.

A guideline is a document in which we describe only the stylistic components of the brand, that is, the graphic part and the design of carriers.

A brand book is a document that reflects the ideological and stylistic components of a brand: mission, values, Tone of Voice + guidelines, rules for using logos, photos, and brand techniques. The brand book can be called a kind of "passport" of the company.

So why are they confused? Both guideline and brand book are documents with a lot of text and graphics. Both are necessary for companies with branches or dealers.

When do you need a guideline?

Guidelines are a set of ready-made design solutions and will be useful to us:

  • - for unity in the design of carriers: often in the process of brand development, the design is distorted. Guidelines will help us systematize all aspects and check them against the rules.
  • - to hand over design work to outsourcing: sometimes one company creates the style, and other performers design the carriers. Here it is important for us to convey the rules of use to maintain the design.
  • - for standardizing the production of regular carriers: weekly reports, monthly publications, employee uniforms, and other carriers released periodically.

In short, guidelines will help your logo on the signboard of the main office in orange color not to differ from the logo of the branch in pumpkin color. Designers will choose identical shades, corporate fonts, and maintain a consistent style throughout the company—from carriers to advertising campaigns.

When do you need a brand book?

A guideline is a part of a brand book, which means that a brand book solves the same tasks as a guideline, but it also has its own separate functions. We use a brand book:

  • — when expanding the team is planned: to communicate the company's ideology to new employees and standardize processes
  • — when launching a franchise: the image of the entire franchise will depend on each partner, so a unified system for all participants is important
  • — when organizing order within the company from different departments: employees will know which values to adhere to in their work
  • — when launching image advertising campaigns with large budgets: the brand's unified message must be reflected in all materials.

In short, a brand book aligns all working processes in the company into one line.

What are the components of a brand book and guideline?

So, the big nesting doll or brand book consists of a marketing part and a guideline. The marketing part includes:

Positioning:

  • — product, UTP
  • — target audience,
  • — values
  • — mission
  • — reasons to believe (RTB)

Communication strategy:

  • — tone of voice
  • — brand's key message
  • — examples of communication in different channels (online, offline)

The third block, the brand identity, is the second nesting doll, the guideline. We include in it:

  • — logo
  • — corporate element
  • — photo style
  • — typography
  • — layout of corporate materials
  • — layout of advertising materials
  • — layout of web materials

Can a guideline exist without a brand book?

Often, when companies order a brand book, they actually only need a guideline. A guideline is a comprehensive informational product.

However, if your company has many employees, branches, and is actively developing, it is important that all elements of the company act in a coordinated manner. And then you cannot do without a brand book.

How to create an ideal brand book and guideline?

Never create both of these documents just for the sake of having them, like "everyone has it, so let's have it too." These are documents that your company and each employee should orient themselves to in their work.

For example, the brand book of Aeroflot pays special attention to the brand pyramid, with the emphasis not on "globality in transportation," but on the individuality of the person and the passenger. The values of the brand are described - reliability, safety, and efficiency.

The Bolshoi Theatre has a very wide range of needs, and the logo is used on a variety of media, from posters to wardrobe tags. The theatre's guideline presents adaptive versions of the logo for any medium.

You need to know exactly how and for what purpose each item in the brand book will be used, so that they are not written down aimlessly; on which media and formats the logo or corporate colors and fonts will be displayed, so that you know how it will look in reality.

In the end, both documents will help us systematize business processes. But the difference in scale: the brand book even orders the brand's thinking, and the guideline only shows how it looks. Not all brands always need both guidelines. Evaluate your company's internal needs and choose the document that is right for you.

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1. General Provisions

This Personal Data Processing Policy is drafted in accordance with the requirements of Federal Law No. 152-FZ dated July 27, 2006, “On Personal Data” (hereinafter referred to as the Personal Data Law) and defines the procedure for processing personal data and the measures taken to ensure the security of personal data by LLC “AISIU+” (hereinafter referred to as the Operator).

1.1. The Operator considers the observance of human and civil rights and freedoms during the processing of personal data, including the protection of the right to privacy, personal and family confidentiality, to be its primary objective and essential condition for carrying out its activities.

1.2. This Policy of the Operator regarding the processing of personal data (hereinafter – the Policy) applies to all information that the Operator may receive about visitors to the website .

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7.3. Anonymized data of Users collected through web analytics services is used to gather information about User behavior on the website, improve the quality of the website, and enhance its content.

8. Legal Grounds for Personal Data Processing

8.1. The legal grounds for the processing of personal data by the Operator are:
– Federal Law “On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection” No. 149-FZ dated July 27, 2006;
– federal laws and other regulatory legal acts in the field of personal data protection;
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8.3. The Operator processes anonymized data about the User if this is permitted in the User’s browser settings (such as enabling the storage of cookies and the use of JavaScript technology).

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9.2. The processing of personal data is necessary to achieve the purposes provided for by an international treaty of the Russian Federation or by law, as well as to fulfill the functions, powers, and duties imposed on the Operator by the legislation of the Russian Federation.

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9.6. Personal data is processed that has been made publicly available by the personal data subject or at their request (hereinafter – publicly available personal data).

9.7. Personal data is processed that is subject to publication or mandatory disclosure in accordance with federal law.
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The security of personal data processed by the Operator is ensured through the implementation of legal, organizational, and technical measures necessary to fully comply with the requirements of current legislation in the field of personal data protection.

10.1. The Operator ensures the safekeeping of personal data and takes all possible measures to prevent unauthorized access to personal data.

10.2. The User’s personal data will never, under any circumstances, be transferred to third parties, except in cases related to the fulfillment of applicable legislation or if the personal data subject has given the Operator consent to transfer the data to a third party for the purpose of fulfilling obligations under a civil law contract.

10.3. If any inaccuracies in the personal data are identified, the User may update them independently by sending a notification to the Operator at the email address hello@icu.agency with the subject line “Personal Data Update.”

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10.8. The Operator stores personal data in a form that allows identification of the personal data subject for no longer than is necessary to achieve the purposes of personal data processing, unless a longer storage period is established by federal law or a contract to which the personal data subject is a party, beneficiary, or guarantor.

10.9. The grounds for termination of personal data processing may include the achievement of the processing purposes, the expiration of the data subject’s consent, the withdrawal of consent by the personal data subject, or the identification of unlawful processing of personal data.

11. List of Actions Performed by the Operator with Collected Personal Data

11.1. The Operator carries out the collection, recording, systematization, accumulation, storage, clarification (updating, modification), retrieval, use, transfer (distribution, provision, access), depersonalization, blocking, deletion, and destruction of personal data.

11.2. The Operator performs automated processing of personal data with the receipt and/or transfer of the obtained information via information and telecommunication networks or without such transfer.

12. Cross-Border Transfer of Personal Data

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12.2. Cross-border transfer of personal data to foreign countries that do not meet the above requirements may only occur if there is written consent from the personal data subject for the cross-border transfer of their personal data and/or for the execution of a contract to which the personal data subject is a party.

13. Confidentiality of Personal Data

The Operator and other individuals who have access to personal data are obligated not to disclose or distribute personal data to third parties without the consent of the personal data subject, unless otherwise required by federal law.

14. Final Provisions

14.1. The User can obtain any clarifications regarding the processing of their personal data by contacting the Operator via email at hello@icu.agency.

14.2. Any changes to the Operator’s personal data processing policy will be reflected in this document. The Policy is valid indefinitely until replaced by a new version.

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