Episode Summary
On Episode 4 of The Out & About Podcast, we focus on visual branding, emphasizing that marketing is more than just a pretty face. It’s not just the frosting; it’s the actual cake. Hosts Tiffany, Jimmy, and Ellie discuss why visual branding matters in financial services, what belongs in a visual brand beyond the logo, and how consistency builds recognition and trust.
Key Takeaways:
Visual branding isn’t just the logo — it’s the combination of your colors, fonts, photography, layout, and more to tell your story. When those pieces stay consistent, your audience learns to recognize and trust your brand, which is especially important in financial services.
- It’s easy for internal teams to get bored with seeing the same logo or templates day after day. But what may feel “stale” within your company may actually appear familiar or trustworthy to your audience.
- Your clients see your brand far less often than you do, so refreshing your brand just because you’re tired of it can cause confusion and weaken recognition. Every consistent touchpoint, from your website to your social posts, reinforces confidence and recall. Think of it as steady repetition, not monotony.
- One of our clients used a distinctive shape from its logo to crop images across its site. It was hard to build at first, but the result was instantly on-brand and recognizable — a great example of design consistency paying off.
- A few moments that made us stop and think:
- Rebrands shouldn’t chase trends. A recent one got us thinking on what makes a rebrand successful. The key is to know your audience and stand by a decision if you change or modernize it.
- Template tools are for rollout, not creation. While design tools are easy to use, use them to apply your brand, not define it. The foundation — your logo, colors, fonts, and visual style — should come first so every piece you create feels consistent and intentional.
- Lose the tagline in your logo. Taglines are often difficult to read at small sizes and end up competing with your name instead of supporting it.
- Skip generic stock photos. Instead, invest in team photoshoots or branded “stock” so your visuals feel authentic and uniquely yours.
Don’t Miss the ONE Thing You Should Go Do First!
- Create or revisit your brand guidelines and designate someone to enforce them: your brand compliance officer! At minimum, document your logo variations, color values (hex and CMYK), and fonts, plus rules for layout, photography, and iconography. It’s not glamorous work, but it’s the foundation for every strong, consistent brand.
Links & Resources
- Financial Services Branding: When and How Should Your Logo Redesign Your Company Logo?
- Website Redesigns: The Process Behind Building Websites for Financial Services Companies
- Previous Episode [#3]: Before You Start Marketing: Financial Services Positioning
Join Us!
Want more practical marketing ideas? Join the Out & About newsletter for fresh insights into financial services marketing. This month, you’ll also receive our Brand Guidelines Checklist straight to your inbox!
Transcript
00:00:00:03 - 00:00:20:11
Jimmy Lim
I woke up to like tons of messages, text messages, emails from journalists. What happened to your logo? And I was like, oh man, what?
00:00:20:13 - 00:00:24:10
Ellie Alexander
If you're bored with it, you're actually probably doing the right thing.
00:00:24:11 - 00:00:30:00
Jimmy Lim
Everyone who has a stake in the brand just needs to be able to talk about it.
00:00:30:00 - 00:00:35:06
Tiffany Silverberg
And then the company needs to stand behind it, right? Like, this is what we're trying to do. This is, we're ready to move forward.
00:00:35:07 - 00:00:37:11
Ellie Alexander
I'm going to say don't put your tagline in your logo.
00:00:37:13 - 00:00:39:04
Tiffany Silverberg
Yay.
00:00:39:06 - 00:00:43:06
Ellie Alexander
Drives me crazy.
00:00:43:08 - 00:01:07:24
Tiffany Silverberg
Hey everyone, welcome back to The Out & About Podcast, where we break down all things marketing and financial services and everything we see working and what's not working and answering all your questions. So we're excited to have you back. We've got a fun topic, or at least fun to us, so we hope you enjoy it. I'm obviously joined here again by Jimmy and Ellie, and we're going to talk about visual branding.
00:01:08:01 - 00:01:23:16
Tiffany Silverberg
We'll get into what that means. But, we're here to talk about how marketing is more than just a pretty face. So that's the theme of today. Ellie, I'm going to steal your thing. What do you always say? It's not just the frosting. It's not just the icing. It's the actual cake.
00:01:23:19 - 00:01:32:09
Ellie Alexander
Yeah. It's good to have that frosting on top. You want the frosting on top. That's what makes people want to eat the cake. But if it was just a pile of frosting it doesn’t do anybody any good.
00:01:32:09 - 00:01:33:06
Jimmy Lim
You’ve got glee.
00:01:33:08 - 00:01:33:24
Tiffany Silverberg
And style.
00:01:33:24 - 00:01:35:08
Ellie Alexander
And substance.
00:01:35:10 - 00:01:56:07
Tiffany Silverberg
Absolutely. So should we dive in? Actually before we do, because it's kind of on topic here, should we talk a little bit about all the rebranding we see out there? I don't have to go to the politics side of things but I can talk about the juicy gossip of marketing these days.
00:01:56:07 - 00:01:59:00
Ellie Alexander
Yes, the infamous one, the infamous recent rebrands.
00:01:59:02 - 00:02:03:17
Tiffany Silverberg
There has been an emphasis I feel like even if you just go back like six months, a year…
00:02:03:17 - 00:02:08:12
Ellie Alexander
There's always a series of these. There's always the rebrand.
00:02:08:14 - 00:02:09:12
Jimmy Lim
Yeah.
00:02:09:14 - 00:02:33:15
Ellie Alexander
I mean, I think the recent one we're all thinking about is just a really good example of knowing your audience and knowing yourself. We were talking on the call earlier about whether you're on the internal marketing and brand team or whether you're external, it can be tempting to get sick of the brand since you see it every day.
00:02:33:15 - 00:02:51:22
Ellie Alexander
I'm sure everyone who works at Target is so sick of red. You get so sick of certain things and you might think it's stale, but you really need to know and be sure everyone else thinks it's stale before you go and change it, because you see it eight hours a day. People interacting with it out in the world see it very rarely.
00:02:51:22 - 00:03:10:01
Ellie Alexander
And might have a completely different opinion on it that you do. So yeah, I think the recent one we're thinking of, this brand is built around tradition and consistency and kind of old-timeyness. Maybe a super modern rebrand wasn't exactly what that audience and that brand needed.
00:03:10:03 - 00:03:10:21
Tiffany Silverberg
So.
00:03:10:23 - 00:03:12:15
Ellie Alexander
Yeah, that's my hot take.
00:03:12:17 - 00:03:29:16
Tiffany Silverberg
Well, yeah. And it's interesting because when we're talking about branding, we're going to get into the specifics of what all that means. But in this particular case, these headline ideas and we can talk about the specific companies if we want, but maybe it's better to keep it vague. It's usually a logo change, right?
00:03:29:16 - 00:03:34:11
Tiffany Silverberg
That's the driving feature.
00:03:34:13 - 00:03:37:11
Ellie Alexander
I usually get mad when you change your typeface or change your color.
00:03:37:14 - 00:03:52:01
Tiffany Silverberg
Yeah. I was going to say I just find it kind of fascinating because I don't know, we know logos and we like logos, but are we really that emotionally tied to certain logos? I guess maybe we are. I think so, yeah.
00:03:52:03 - 00:04:22:00
Jimmy Lim
I think this recent example and past examples of big, big companies doing that just shows they underestimate the kind of attachment your consumers have to your logo. I mean, maybe they like it, but it's also an assurance that, oh, I'm getting what I used to get and that's not a bad thing, right?
00:04:22:02 - 00:04:45:23
Jimmy Lim
So it's kind of like marketing 101, right? You give your consumers what they need or want. Don't try to push something on them. So yeah. I mean to Ellie's point, I think it'll be interesting, the data, like a consumer survey or a focus group. What do you think of the logo? Do you think it's stale?
00:04:45:23 - 00:04:47:21
Jimmy Lim
Yeah.
00:04:47:23 - 00:05:05:16
Tiffany Silverberg
Yeah. And sort of our own hot take on the topic right now — we feel bad for all marketing teams that are behind all these PR campaigns or you see the company logo and then somebody in marketing or some head leader, whoever, makes an announcement and oh, we've changed our mind.
00:05:05:16 - 00:05:19:04
Tiffany Silverberg
We've listened to the people and we've fired the company. I'm just like that poor company, right? They didn't know what they were getting themselves into. They were just trying to follow whatever.
00:05:19:04 - 00:05:24:05
Ellie Alexander
That was probably the assignment they were given. It's exactly that. Maybe it wasn't that organized.
00:05:24:08 - 00:05:25:11
Tiffany Silverberg
This logo.
00:05:25:13 - 00:05:28:21
Ellie Alexander
Yeah, it was maybe just an assignment that never should have been given.
00:05:28:23 - 00:05:49:02
Tiffany Silverberg
Frankly, I know I think that's the takeaway. I mean, not that we're going to wrap up the podcast in the first three minutes, but that's one of the main takeaways, right? We talked about positioning last time. And yeah, you’ve just got to know who you're talking to and the purpose of your brand and all of that. And like not let trends drive the conversation.
00:05:49:21 - 00:05:52:11
Jimmy Lim
Not fix what isn't broken.
00:05:52:13 - 00:06:06:14
Ellie Alexander
That's actually a really good segue though, Tiffany. What you just said is to maybe just double down and clarify how what we're talking about today is different than last week. Last week we were talking brand — and people use the word brand for so many different things interchangeably.
00:06:06:14 - 00:06:20:17
Ellie Alexander
And if you asked 10 different people in the industry, you'll get 10 different answers. But last week we focused more on the positioning of your brand, which is like the foundation. What do you stand for? What are your values? What do you want people to know about you? Kind of almost like, what's your elevator pitch?
00:06:20:19 - 00:06:44:17
Ellie Alexander
And today it's like, okay, you're taking that next step and we know what we stand for. We know who we are, how we want to be perceived, how we get that message across. It's kind of like — I use these analogies all the time — but it's kind of like your personality; it’s like you're positioning yourself, like you’re a person who has X, Y, Z values and you're spunky or you're serious.
00:06:44:19 - 00:07:04:18
Ellie Alexander
That's your personality. The way you then talk or the clothes you wear are your visual brand or your brand voice and how you convey that to the world. If your exterior doesn't match your interior, people are going to get confused or make incorrect assumptions. So yeah, you're trying to make sure you're putting out what you're like in essence.
00:07:04:20 - 00:07:10:20
Jimmy Lim
That is so true. How you present yourself, how you show up. Having that insight.
00:07:11:01 - 00:07:29:00
Tiffany Silverberg
So then there are times where it makes sense for big corporations or small companies to update their brand, right? When it does make sense. We haven't modernized in a long time. We're reaching a new audience or things like that. So again, that's where the impetus goes to the marketing company.
00:07:29:02 - 00:07:29:16
Ellie Alexander
For the brief.
00:07:29:16 - 00:07:49:24
Tiffany Silverberg
It should be aligned with who they are actually trying to target. And then the company needs to stand behind it, right? This is what we're trying to do. We're ready to move forward. So anyway, that's our hot take because there are times it's time to update the logo. We've done it plenty of times. Then you have to take that stand.
00:07:50:01 - 00:07:53:02
Tiffany Silverberg
We made this decision as a company. We're going for it.
00:07:53:04 - 00:08:13:14
Ellie Alexander
It's like, if your logo could have a driver's license, you really need to assess it and see if it needs an update. It might not. Seems like it may be like some logos are timeless. And if it's still working, by no means like the example we were talking about, don't fix it if it ain't broke.
00:08:13:18 - 00:08:25:09
Ellie Alexander
But yeah, if it's been around for like 15, 16 years, it's time. Just be like, okay, let's just take a look. Is it portraying us as outdated or is it still good to go? And if so, proceed. But sorry, just a little side note.
00:08:25:11 - 00:08:46:07
Tiffany Silverberg
Especially if it's not a name brand or a household name, right? If it’s a household name, to Jimmy's point, you probably need to really think about whether we're making major changes or why and really stand behind those. But if it's not a household name and you're trying to come in and turn off the marketing, then it's probably time to go, okay, what is this even reflecting?
00:08:46:09 - 00:08:50:01
Tiffany Silverberg
This new push as you're trying to bring in new leads and things like that.
00:08:50:03 - 00:08:51:07
Ellie Alexander
Yep.
00:08:51:09 - 00:09:10:19
Tiffany Silverberg
All right. So visual branding, it's probably the phrase we'll use, but we may talk around it a little bit. So what are we saying? What do we love when we talk about this topic? By the way, I love that we're talking about this because it's not my area of expertise. So we're going to let Ellie lead this.
00:09:10:19 - 00:09:15:03
Tiffany Silverberg
So Ellie, what are you saying yes to when it comes to visual branding?
00:09:15:05 - 00:09:36:16
Ellie Alexander
Mine is very specific. And I should say there is one little caveat, a side note before I get into it. We've already talked a lot about logos, and I just want to be clear, that is the foundation of your visual brand, but your visual brand also includes the typefaces you use, your color palette, your photography style, your layout style, your iconography — it's everything that would go into your brand guidelines.
00:09:36:18 - 00:09:56:13
Ellie Alexander
But yeah, logos are the cornerstone. It's the most important piece. So that's why we will focus on logos more disproportionately, depending on the pieces. But my thing I'm saying yes to relates to logos and is a pet peeve of mine. Stop putting taglines in logos. And so when I'm going to free logos.
00:09:56:19 - 00:10:18:09
Ellie Alexander
Tagline-free logos please. And thank you when when so many things are being viewed on phones and in little profile icons, or in the footer of a little email, or like even if you're talking about a print piece, so on the digital side, don't put your tagline in your logo just because nine times out of 10 it's not going to be legible.
00:10:18:09 - 00:10:45:08
Ellie Alexander
It's just going to be a bunch of jumbled pixels and no one will even read it. And then it'll also look sloppy. And secondly, in terms of just overall design, you spend a lot of time crafting your tagline and you spend a lot of time crafting your logo. When you lock them together, they start to compete because your name is probably one, two, three or four words, depending on the length of your company name, and your tagline’s another five to 10.
00:10:45:10 - 00:11:01:17
Ellie Alexander
Don't have those two things competing for people's attention at a single time. Let your logo shine. Even if it's a brand folder, let your logo shine and put your tagline on the bottom. The tagline can live in other places. Let them both be their own thing and don't mash them together. Sorry I talked about that too long.
00:11:01:18 - 00:11:03:10
Ellie Alexander
Like I said, pet peeve.
00:11:03:12 - 00:11:22:02
Tiffany Silverberg
I love it. Okay, I'll share mine next. Mainly because we just did this with a client, so this way it's on my mind. Otherwise this would not be. I don't know if I think of it right away, but photo shoots, planning photo shoots for your team and then doing some branded stock photos with that.
00:11:22:02 - 00:11:40:09
Tiffany Silverberg
Or at least let’s move away from real stock photos like, what do they call it? I just pulled it up a coastal grandma. Everybody doesn't need to have the coastal grandma Diane Keaton brand. So thinking outside the stock image.
00:11:40:09 - 00:12:02:08
Tiffany Silverberg
Are you thinking outside the grandparents on the beach? But my favorite is when our team can go in and be like, okay, when you get those photo shoots, also take this picture. And this picture, this type of picture. Ellie is really good about giving them a whole list. And it just makes me so happy because we literally have all these photos and video snippets and B-roll and everything we can use.
00:12:02:08 - 00:12:09:24
Tiffany Silverberg
That's mine. No one else is going to use it because it's theirs. Yeah. That's my favorite thing right now.
00:12:10:04 - 00:12:14:15
Ellie Alexander
Saying yes to custom image libraries, not just piles of generic stock photos.
00:12:14:17 - 00:12:16:11
Jimmy Lim
Exactly.
00:12:16:13 - 00:12:17:20
Tiffany Silverberg
Right, Jimmy.
00:12:17:22 - 00:12:40:11
Jimmy Lim
Okay. Well, what I'm saying yes to. And I'm glad that Ellie made that distinction — visual brand, yes, the logo is a cornerstone, but we're talking about a lot of other things, and that's relevant to what I'm saying yes to. I love it when a lot of thought has gone into the whole visual branding such that you don't even need to see the logo.
00:12:40:11 - 00:13:00:14
Jimmy Lim
Sometimes you just need to see elements of the logo or the way they treat their pictures, or maybe a certain way or preference. They use illustration and it could almost play the game of look at this and you cover the logo. Guess which company it is. And maybe nine out of 10 times people give you the right company.
00:13:00:14 - 00:13:04:20
Jimmy Lim
I think that is so clever. And that's. Yeah, what I'm saying yes to.
00:13:04:20 - 00:13:33:07
Tiffany Silverberg
So that reminds me, we had a client years ago — and I'm trying to be vague — they have a shape in their logo that's really specific. And throughout their brand, they use that element. So even when we built their website, their images, their photos were created almost like a cookie cutter had been put on them to the shape of that part of their logo.
00:13:33:09 - 00:13:46:24
Tiffany Silverberg
I think the developer got quite a headache trying to make this happen, but it looked so good when it was finally done because it was just so on brand. No one else has that image or sorry — what am I trying to say?
00:13:47:01 - 00:13:47:19
Ellie Alexander
That crop, that silhouette.
00:13:47:19 - 00:14:08:03
Tiffany Silverberg
Yeah. Like that crop of it. Crop. That's my word. Yeah. Anyway, it looks so good. So I love that. All right, so let's get into it. Visual branding, Ellie or anyone but Ellie. That's right. Why can't we just go to Canva and make a bunch of pretty things and move on?
00:14:08:05 - 00:14:30:09
Ellie Alexander
So many reasons. No, actually I will say people give Canva a hard time. It has its uses, lots of tools. Oh, yeah. Like ChatGPT. We've made things for clients in Canva. I don't actually viscerally hate Canva. But yes, when you're at that level of crafting your brand, I would not go to Canva to roll out your brand.
00:14:30:11 - 00:14:32:24
Tiffany Silverberg
Yes, yes.
00:14:33:01 - 00:14:55:23
Ellie Alexander
Because first off, I mean, if you're looking in the Canva libraries or whatever, you're going to be number one using things that other people use. You could end up with the same logo as the competitor down the street who decides to go to Canva six months from now.
00:14:56:00 - 00:15:17:18
Ellie Alexander
And even if you avoid that potential pitfall, it's just never going to be like you're talking about how your brand visual really reflects your personality and your values. Maybe you'll find something on Canva that gets you like 80% of the way there — it's kind of got your personality — but you're never going to get something that is number one, unique and recognizable.
00:15:17:23 - 00:15:38:04
Ellie Alexander
Number two, custom to you that truly reflects the personality and the experience you provide. And then my third thing is just in terms of feasibility, like rollout and keeping things going. You may pull things from Canva and then six months down the line, you need a new web page.
00:15:38:04 - 00:16:09:16
Ellie Alexander
Well, then you have to go back, and the likelihood is low that you're going to go back to Canva and find the corresponding imagery. Canva is never going to be able to give you that really key brand consistency, which is so important to just put the same visual stamp on everything you do on every platform, whether it's your business card or your LinkedIn profile or your website or the tote bag you send home with your new clients — you'll just never be able to get that sort of breadth and consistency.
00:16:09:16 - 00:16:18:00
Ellie Alexander
If you're trying to build a brand exclusively on something like Canva — like I said, I love you, Canva — but I'm not for that.
00:16:18:00 - 00:16:40:07
Tiffany Silverberg
I was just going to say what we can get into, like folders and things like that because we definitely do. But feel free to jump on this — how do we do that? How do we build a brand that's not just — I can't remember how you just said I should have just stolen your words — but you were like, we can't just build it there because we can't just go back and look for the same thing.
00:16:40:07 - 00:16:57:01
Tiffany Silverberg
So, what are the elements we need to build first to be able to then go out and make the things? It feels like Canva is the place to go but what stuff do we have to take first to know our logo, you know. Do they understand? I'm asking.
00:16:57:03 - 00:17:01:20
Jimmy Lim
Like a logo. I guess it's sort of that.
00:17:01:22 - 00:17:04:08
Tiffany Silverberg
You can try AI too.
00:17:04:08 - 00:17:24:01
Jimmy Lim
I guess it's like what is the style? Everyone who has a stake in the brand just needs to be able to talk about it, like, oh, what do we think the brand is? And again, the last time we talked about the brand positioning statement — I think that helps.
00:17:24:02 - 00:17:25:07
Jimmy Lim
Yeah.
00:17:25:09 - 00:17:51:18
Ellie Alexander
I think too, as I mentioned earlier, all the parts and pieces that go into a brand, having your logo, your color palette, your fonts, your layout style, your photography style, icon style. But having something to kind of hang your hat on, like Tiffany, the example you just gave of our past client where they always lead with an image cropped into their logo.
00:17:51:19 - 00:18:00:14
Ellie Alexander
That was their go-to and it's it. Can I use the name of the one we were talking about before the call? That's not our client. The big one. We were talking about the illustration style.
00:18:00:18 - 00:18:01:08
Tiffany Silverberg
Sure.
00:18:01:08 - 00:18:02:17
Ellie Alexander
Yeah. You can answer. Yeah.
00:18:02:17 - 00:18:03:21
Tiffany Silverberg
I think you can.
00:18:03:22 - 00:18:20:12
Ellie Alexander
If you’re in the financial services industry, you probably get lots of Fisher Investments ads on your LinkedIn feed. I know I do — the moment I started working at Out & About, it was Fisher ad, Fisher ad. But they hang their hat on their illustration style.
00:18:20:17 - 00:18:49:04
Ellie Alexander
So the moment you see that in your feed, you see it a couple times, and then from then on, you know that's what you're looking at. So they've decided — I honestly couldn't even tell you what their logo looks like — I think it's like a serif font. I'm not even sure I could even tell you what the color palette is, but I know their illustration style, so once you have those elements defined, the really successful brands have one part of their brand they really go all in on.
00:18:49:06 - 00:19:04:01
Ellie Alexander
And yeah, like Nike. Nike's is their photo style and obviously their logo. But they switch up their color palettes, they switch up their layout and design styles. But Nike photography, you'll know it.
00:19:04:03 - 00:19:25:23
Jimmy Lim
And it's consistent. I really love the point you made earlier on — we were chatting earlier about how internally you could be looking at the logo and all your brand elements every single day, and you're like, it's been like the fifth year and I'm looking at this.
00:19:25:23 - 00:19:59:00
Jimmy Lim
It's getting boring. But to your consumers, they don't look at it as much as you do. So maybe for every tenth time you look at it, maybe they're looking at it twice. So it pays to have that consistency. And if we kind of use that Fisher Investment again, that illustration, I'm sure it took a while to see it to then go, oh, to the point where now if I get a newsletter and I'm scrolling real quick and I see your illustration, I’m like, oh, let me scroll back, I think it's them.
00:19:59:00 - 00:20:04:04
Jimmy Lim
And I'm like, yes, I'm correct.
00:20:04:06 - 00:20:24:03
Tiffany Silverberg
Oh gosh, there's so much there. So it sounds like the brand now. So the visual branding is a fence for us to work at. It tells us the guideline, sets the world right: these are the guidelines.
00:20:24:03 - 00:20:29:17
Tiffany Silverberg
And then we can scribble outside the lines. Once we know what the line is.
00:20:29:19 - 00:20:50:19
Ellie Alexander
Yeah. And I would say like the smaller an organization you are the tighter the fence should be. And maybe even the smaller organization, national versus highly local, do your brand awareness — when I just used Nike as an example, that wasn't the best example.
00:20:50:19 - 00:21:15:06
Ellie Alexander
They play around with different things because they need to create so much. And they're in so many different areas. Like Target, even though they're pretty strict about their brand standards, they have different campaigns and they can sometimes switch things up. But if you're smaller, localized, your most important thing is consistency to create recognition.
00:21:15:06 - 00:21:30:15
Ellie Alexander
That's not the time to be like, oh, what about we try this like look over here for this campaign or this look over here for these materials. It’s not consistent and it's also not very efficient. So if you're worried about just being able to create all your marketing touchpoints and things in an efficient, feasible way, lock it down.
00:21:30:17 - 00:21:45:00
Ellie Alexander
But you really just want to focus on creating a super to the point visual, and if you're bored with it, you're actually probably doing the right thing because that means you're being super, super consistent and that'll start building that brand recognition.
00:21:45:02 - 00:21:45:16
Tiffany Silverberg
Okay.
00:21:45:16 - 00:21:49:24
Jimmy Lim
I was going to add that it helps to build that brand recall.
00:21:50:01 - 00:21:51:04
Tiffany Silverberg
Yeah.
00:21:51:06 - 00:22:02:21
Jimmy Lim
Right. You see it and you're like oh, okay. And that is such precious marketing equity if you can build that brand recall.
00:22:02:23 - 00:22:23:21
Tiffany Silverberg
So to speak to some of our listeners who are in that marketing seat who have those conversations. Their leadership is like, we're kind of tired of seeing the same social media posts or the templates all look the same. And I'm seeing new cool stuff from my buddy or new stuff on my feed.
00:22:23:21 - 00:22:31:09
Tiffany Silverberg
Like, dude, what do we say to them and to our listeners — oh, I'm trying to build a brand here.
00:22:31:11 - 00:22:53:22
Ellie Alexander
Yeah. I mean, if you can steal any of the lines we used over the last couple minutes, please do. I have five different thoughts running in my head right now. If you're bored, it's probably a good thing because, like Jimmy said, for every 100 times you see it, a consumer sees it once.
00:22:53:24 - 00:23:14:08
Ellie Alexander
But also that's not to negate, okay, maybe if every single one of your social posts is — I'm just gonna make something up — one fact if you're just sharing, one helpful fact and that's every single social post — it might not be your visual brand, and mixing up your visual brand might not be the solution.
00:23:14:10 - 00:23:39:20
Ellie Alexander
What if you tried different types of content? What if your next social post is a case study, or your next social post is a feature of one of your team members? If you really feel like creating more variety, especially in terms of content, mixing up the visual brand should actually be the last way you tackle that, because like you said, Jimmy, that is so precious, that consistency.
00:23:39:24 - 00:23:53:10
Ellie Alexander
So first look at ways you could shape the content or even in your website. Is there different information you can include — don't just change the frosting. Like maybe change the flavor of the cake.
00:23:53:12 - 00:24:12:03
Jimmy Lim
And I was going to add unless of course, you know, there’s an incongruency right between how it appears and your brain and your visual branding. But otherwise if it's working, if it's not broken, then keep it in and explore freshness in other ways.
00:24:12:05 - 00:24:12:22
Ellie Alexander
00:24:12:24 - 00:24:13:15
Jimmy Lim
Yeah.
00:24:13:17 - 00:24:18:00
Tiffany Silverberg
Yeah I like it. I know we're coming up on time again.
00:24:18:03 - 00:24:18:22
Ellie Alexander
It goes fast.
00:24:18:24 - 00:24:37:13
Tiffany Silverberg
I know it goes so fast and there's so much I can talk about. But what is our main takeaway or our main takeaways? It's going to take us a minute to talk about that anyway. So keep listening, listeners. There's more. What do we want everyone to do — just one action step from this. Where do we want them to go?
00:24:37:15 - 00:24:39:06
Ellie Alexander
Yeah, well, I can take that.
00:24:39:08 - 00:24:39:21
Tiffany Silverberg
Yeah.
00:24:39:21 - 00:24:47:24
Ellie Alexander
It’s going to be redundant to some of the other stuff we talked about. And that actually supports the point of our takeaway. This is our most boring podcast.
00:24:48:04 - 00:24:50:10
Tiffany Silverberg
And we're just repeating ourselves.
00:24:50:12 - 00:25:11:05
Ellie Alexander
Have brand guidelines, enforce them religiously, and put someone in charge of them. If you don't have brand guidelines that cover all the stuff I've mentioned a few times — logos, colors, fonts, layout, photography style, and iconography style — I think that covers all the big ones.
00:25:11:07 - 00:25:21:06
Ellie Alexander
If you don't have brand guidelines that cover those, or at minimum logo, color, font — those are the three things you absolutely cannot get away without having. Logo, color, font. The other stuff is better.
00:25:21:08 - 00:25:32:23
Tiffany Silverberg
And then before you keep going, tell us exactly what you mean by that? Like, this should be a PDF that shows the logo and its various formats that are allowed.
00:25:33:00 - 00:25:33:16
Ellie Alexander
Yep.
00:25:33:18 - 00:25:41:07
Tiffany Silverberg
And then the colors, the numbers that are associated with them. I don't know what they're called.
00:25:41:09 - 00:25:58:14
Ellie Alexander
There's CMYK values for print and the ones for web are called hex values. People don't do as much print anymore. So even if all you have is your hex values, that's the most important thing to have. And then you have your fonts.
00:25:58:14 - 00:26:19:16
Ellie Alexander
If you have to have different fonts for like, let's say your Word docs or your Google presentations, that's just like a stumbling point. We've seen people hit a lot. It's like if you got your brand designed by a designer and in all likelihood you have marketing fonts that are not available in Microsoft Word, Google Docs, Google Slides.
00:26:19:16 - 00:26:21:18
Tiffany Silverberg
On your logo or whatever. But they're not.
00:26:21:18 - 00:26:41:21
Ellie Alexander
Yeah, yeah. So just make sure you know what those fonts are. What fonts that match your brand fonts that people internally should be using when they create a Word doc or Google Slide, whatever. But yeah, and enforce them. Like you're saying, consistency is boring, but consistency is key.
00:26:41:23 - 00:26:59:16
Ellie Alexander
And if your organization is small enough or roles are shared and it's not clear, you don't have a VP of marketing or an internal designer or someone who is the obvious go-to person for these types of questions, have someone assigned to be the brand police.
00:26:59:18 - 00:27:22:20
Ellie Alexander
That's what it's called. Who's the brand police? And then at least you've got one person who's in charge of knowing all that information, is in charge of making sure everybody's doing it consistently, and can resolve any questions. If you are using Canva for your social posts, have one person where if somebody makes this post on Canva, they can go to that person and say, okay, is this all great to you.
00:27:23:16 - 00:27:28:08
Tiffany Silverberg
It's like compliance, right? It's your brand compliance person.
00:27:30:01 - 00:27:33:06
Jimmy Lim
Just part of it maybe. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
00:27:33:08 - 00:27:36:24
Tiffany Silverberg
Yes. Brand compliance I love it.
00:27:37:01 - 00:27:56:23
Jimmy Lim
To elaborate, I literally make sure somebody is doing it. Yes, I have somebody because like my favorite phrase, if everybody thinks somebody is doing it and then you don't want it to end up not being done, nobody's doing it. So I thought you were doing it. Oh, I thought you were doing it.
00:27:57:00 - 00:27:59:18
Ellie Alexander
I thought this was our color. Oh, I thought this was our color.
00:27:59:20 - 00:28:02:23
Jimmy Lim
Isn't it all green?
00:28:03:00 - 00:28:16:18
Tiffany Silverberg
Yeah. Awesome. Well, thanks, you guys, for joining us again. Anything else we're going to cover again? I know we can talk about visual branding for a long time. Oh, we love doing that with clients.
00:28:16:18 - 00:28:19:10
Ellie Alexander
So find your brand compliance officer.
00:28:19:12 - 00:28:40:13
Tiffany Silverberg
Yeah, I love it. Well, thanks everyone for joining us. If you love this conversation, you want to hear more, make sure you head to outandaboutcommunications.com backslash community to get on the newsletter list. We'll be sending out reminders about the podcast and various resources that we use internally with our clients. So you'll definitely want to get on that list.
00:28:40:15 - 00:28:48:10
Tiffany Silverberg
And we'll be back in a couple weeks chatting more about questions you have about financial services marketing. All right. Thanks everyone.
