We’ve all been on the receiving end. The awareness campaign that raises no awareness. The community event flyer that looks like every other community event flyer. The stock photo of hands joining in a circle. The appeal letter that could have been sent by anyone, about anything.
In marketing terms, this is in part due to what’s called a brand standard. Intended to provide boundaries around what makes a brand uniquely recognizable – from color palette to font face, photo treatments, to icons; tone, vocabulary, background music.
A good brand standard will tune these elements to an intended audience – or audiences. Millenial careerists? Talk like this. Baseball dads who like to grill on the weekends? Like this.
The purpose of a brand standard is to provide guidance for whoever works with the brand – usually a comms team or agency partner – on how to stay neatly within the boundaries .
There’s of course utility to maintaining a sort of control over your brand ethos. Like a good haircut or your signature eyewear. Brand standards set an expectation. They communicate how a brand interacts, what it thinks of itself and how it intends to be received.
At its best, it creates a resonance with those who see themselves reflected back. And it inspires them to take action: buy, donate, share, show up… At it’s worst, it grips so tightly it can only repeat itself. We are like this, not that. Never like that. Always like this.
And then AI made it very easy to do all of this at scale.
I’m not an AI expert, but I was an early adopter. Tools like ChatGPT are amazing for rapid research, analysis, pressure-testing ideas, and sharpening strategy.
But it’s not so great at sounding human. It’s too…robotic. It doesn’t feel sparks of inspiration. It doesn’t cherish memories of having someone offer you a seat at their table. It doesn’t know the smell of kindergarten. What a belly laugh feels like. Or how grief aches.
And because you’re human, you’re probably nodding your head.
You see, the pendulum is now swinging in the other direction. What we’re seeing – especially in younger demographics- is people actively turning away from overly polished content.
My teenage twins, for instance, show me their Snaps now and again. “So and so dissected a human heart today…” They show me their screen and what do I see? A face with what can only be described as enlarged disembodied eyes looking back at me with a small photo of a heart on a table in the background. The next photo is a blurry image of someone snapping their friend, asleep on a school bus. Another is someone with a devil horn filter, hostage lighting, talking about weekend plans.
Aside from my cackle, what’s consistent is that today’s “kids” aren’t taking perfection seriously. They are anti-perfection. Increasingly callous to anyone or anything attempting to lure them into it. That would be very “mid”, very “pick me”.
Trust me, you don’t want to be either of those things.
Matriarc has a workshop for that.
Brand Stand is a four-session workshop series. Part discovery, part audit – we find what your organization truly believes, then hold it up against what you’re putting out into the world.
The outcome looks different for every organization. Sometimes it’s a refreshed mission or vision statement. Sometimes it’s a communications playbook for the next quarter. A core messaging platform for a new initiative. Creative direction for a campaign.
Most teams get about 20 minutes in before someone says “We’ve never looked at it this way before!” And that’s when the fun begins.
If your team is ready to take a stand, contact us below for a consult.