Every company loves a brand guidelines document. It is usually polished, often expensive, and proudly rolled out across the business. The problem is that most of them are useless.
You do not build a strong brand by writing down rules. You build it by leading.
The real issue is not the guidelines themselves. It is the way they are treated. Most exist in isolation. They dictate colour palettes, fonts, tone of voice, and logo usage. But they say very little about what actually drives brand strength.
And that comes down to alignment.
If the leadership team is not modelling the brand in the way it makes decisions, behaves, and communicates, no amount of documentation will make a difference. Brand codes only work when they are reinforced consistently across the organisation.
In many companies, the guidelines are treated as something owned by marketing. They are maintained, updated, and occasionally presented, but rarely understood beyond the department that created them. Without wider buy-in, they become a compliance exercise, not a strategic tool.
They also fail when there is no enforcement. If brand codes can be ignored without consequence, or flexed at will by teams who prefer their own approach, consistency breaks down quickly. And once that happens, distinctiveness fades.
Strong brands are not built by PDFs. They are built by people who live the brand every day. Through behaviour, through tone, through decision-making. It is not just about how you look, it is about how you act.
This is where leadership matters most. When a CEO believes in the brand and embodies it in their actions, others take notice. It sets a tone. Not in a performative way, but in the way culture is shaped — by example, not by decree.
Brand codes should serve as memory structures. Mental shortcuts that help your business become easier to notice, easier to remember, and easier to choose. But they only become powerful when they are used with consistency over time. When they are understood not just visually, but culturally.
The best brands do not just repeat themselves visually. They repeat themselves behaviourally. They show up in a way that becomes familiar and recognisable, even when the logo is not in sight.
That kind of distinctiveness cannot be left to chance. It needs commitment. It needs leadership. And it needs a mindset that sees brand not as a surface-level exercise, but as a long-term commercial asset.
So if you are relying on a set of hex codes and a tone of voice page to do the heavy lifting, you are missing the point.
Strong brands are not built by design alone. They are built by decisions.
