A Guide to Help Your Museum Stay “On Brand”
The two keys to help your museum stay “on brand” are creating a brand kit and convincing museum staff to use it.
What’s a Brand Kit?
A brand kit is a set of guidelines and assets that ensure consistency in the use of a museum’s brand identity.
There should be two parts to a brand kit: the visual elements and the messaging. The visual elements include your chosen fonts, colors, several versions of your logo and imagery. I highly recommend hiring a brand designer to help with this. They will be able to help you hone in on your ideal audience and make sure the brand you are creating is attracting them. My favorite brand kits also include information on accessibility and ideas for templates. The messaging part of the brand kit should include your museum’s mission, vision, values, brand story, one liner, key messages and an elevator speech.
Once you have a complete brand kit the next step is to use it.
As a Comms team, you may understand the value of being consistent with your brand but if your colleagues aren’t also on board than your brand gets a bit watered down and will not gain traction or make an impact. Imagine if the legendary Nike swoosh was just used sometimes or if the golden arches of McDonalds weren’t always golden. Encouraging your colleagues to use the brand kit really is crucial in building a strong brand identity for your museum. The brand kit should be top of mind and used as a resource when creating anything at the museum, whether it is in the exhibits department, education department, visitor services, etc.
So first, why does everyone need to use the brand kit? Here are a few reasons:
Consistency: Consistent use of the brand kit ensures that your brand is easily recognizable, which helps build brand awareness.
Professionalism: Using a brand kit presents your museum with a more professional and trustworthy persona to your potential audience.
Brand identity: The brand kit helps create a strong brand identity that your audience can connect with and remember.
Now, how do you encourage your colleagues to use the brand kit?
Explain the importance: While your Comms team might understand the need and importance of a brand, the rest of the staff may not have a clue. Schedule some time to explain to them why using the brand kit and staying “on brand” is necessary. Let them know that when everyone uses the same set of guidelines, it ensures consistency and makes it easier for your target audiences to recognize your brand.
Provide training: Not everyone is familiar with brand strategy, so providing training on how to use the brand kit will help your colleagues understand how to use it effectively. Make sure that they know you’re there to help and serve as a resource.
Make it accessible: Ensure that the brand kit is easily accessible to your colleagues but also put into place an approval process, especially at the beginning, to check to make sure its being used correctly.
Lead by example: As a leader, it is essential to lead by example. Use the brand kit consistently in all your communications, and your colleagues will follow suit.
Time: Not reinventing the wheel every time you need to create a social media graphic, event signage or powerpoint presentation saves time.
I have seen so many good things come out of brand awareness training. It is something I do with all of my rebrand clients and it is by far one of the training sessions that I get the most complements on. Want to learn more? Here’s my calendar, let’s find time to book a call:
