Solutions

Standard PDF style guidelines are becoming a thing of the past.

Today branding is a holistic exercise and many businesses, not just multi-divisional enterprises such as OneSteel, need a more sophisticated tool. They need their teams to appreciate and adhere to their branding principles, not just use the correct version of the company logo.

At OneSteel, external marketing suppliers and staff employed across hundreds of different Australian brands work with 200 logos, 210-plus electronic and hard-copy stationery templates, and a library of even more images. Guidelines for using fonts, colours and other visuals must also be followed, to strengthen the value of the OneSteel brand through consistent application.

OneSteel asked Art of Multimedia to create an interactive microsite that not only delivers these resources and directions, but includes an animated introduction to brand strategy with voiced commentary as well. Now everyone including non-marketing types can learn about the company's brand positioning, and the importance of employing the brand correctly, without having to wade through a written explanation that bores them to tears.

The Brand Essentials microsite also incorporates instructions on how to apply the brand to all forms of communication, even how to format email signatures, and a legal reference for checking that issues such as intellectual property have been addressed appropriately.

You just can't integrate that range and volume of content in a standard PDF document. The beauty of this innovative tool is that it combines effective communication of OneSteel's branding to a host of stakeholders with a highly usable interface.

AOM coupled a Flash front-end, to make the site as appealing and intuitive as possible, with a Drupal CMS back-end, to enable OneSteel’s marketing communication team to update content whenever necessary.

Internal user access is granted via the company's intranet and registered external users can log in via the OneSteel website.

“We had clear brand guidelines in place, but our old PDF version of the guide was hard to keep current and circulate among staff and marketing suppliers,” says OneSteel corporate project and marketing manager Jonathan Sweet.

“This site resolves those problems and a lot more. It allows our small internal marketing communication team to engage a wide variety of users. And it incorporates Google Analytics, which is proving very useful in monitoring traffic.”

Since its launch Brand Essentials has received praise from a world-renowned branding expert and interest from companies looking to produce a similar tool. Other organisations that have already embraced this kind of solution include the Australian Olympic Committee and Telstra, both with their online media centres.

Within two weeks of the site going live it had hosted more than 700 unique visits from staff and externals who viewed 6,000-plus pages, each spending an average of five minutes looking around. That equates to 60 hours of learning and improving communication outcomes.

Project coordinator Ashleigh Gay says, “The site’s two-way communication channels are key to the ongoing success of our branding. As content administrators we can monitor, update, add and delete material to reflect the ever-changing needs of OneSteel and our businesses.”

As it becomes established, the site will continue to service requests for help and encourage consistent application of the OneSteel brand, while saving everyone time in the process.

For anyone working to maintain a brand, that’s essential.