When asked what makes a digital brand? The most common answer is Consistency. Most people know that all the digital elements should have recognizable elements. The color scheme, the logo and the font should be the same they use elsewhere. Consistency is certainly a good answer.
Do you know why?
Repetition. It makes it easier for people to learn and recognize your brand. People learn through repetition. Right?
Sure. But there's a much easier way. As an example, I've told my kids to brush their teeth before bed a gazillion times. Have they learned that? No, another 10 years should do the trick. But, they learned the Wii in about 3 minutes. Which is amazing since they'd never seen it before. They learned the Wii because it was exciting, interactive, and relevant. In short, they really cared about it. Repetition is the method of learning you use when you don't care or it's irrelevant. When something is relevant, learning is easy.
So, let's learn from my kids. If your digital brand is something your target audience cares about, you won't need to drill it into their forehead like a woodpecker on a Sequoia. I'm not saying your message shouldn't be consistent, it should. But interactive spaces have very tangential experiences with fickle commitment. You can't force everyone to drive past the same billboard for 30 miles in interactive spaces. It's much more efficient to find relevant elements of your brand and deliver it directly than to bombard irrelevant messages repeatedly. This may sound easy, but it's not. Focus on the quality of the message by asking some questions like these:
- What do you have the audience cares about?
- How do they want it given to them?
- How is what you have unique?
Perhaps when you have these answers a word to the wise will be sufficient.
