How do you create and maintain a consistent brand voice and identity in your integrated marketing campaigns?

The job of Integrated marketing is to find the greater whole in the sum of a business's parts. It's in the title: integration. Some useful questions to ask: - What are the outputs of each department that create value the business might not be thinking about leveraging? - How might that value be useful for external partners to the business? - Who are the stakeholders your business brings together and how might you create a network effect around your operation and brand? At the most basic, a good Integrated Marketer will maintain a clear vision of the overlap in the venn diagram between your brand's audience and your brand's partners. Ask less how to extract value from each side, and more how each side can deliver value for each other.

Omni-channel, multi-channel, customer experience, integrated marketing... this concept has multiple names but the gist remains the same, consistency in the way a customer, or potential customer, experiences your brand. The best integrated marketing meets the customer mindset at the point of intersection AND meets the business need that matches the funnel goal. Defining the purpose each channel serves - for the customer and the business - is critical to do at the outset. Even if the results yield unexpected surprises.

Integrated Marketing inspires agile strategy. By looking at all sides of the business to understand the needs and values across internal and external stakeholders, you gain a clear sightline into dynamic shifts that guide the direction of your place in the market.

Draw a through line from the inside-out. If your company culture is consistent with your brand voice, all of your marketing efforts will be easier because people will believe you. Your core of customers and employees will become your advocates. A good brand voice and identity stems from the original 'why' behind the creation of the business. Most companies are the center of an enormous gathering of people and resources and investment. Why? What was the original purpose for bringing all that together? Coca-Cola began as a creation of a doctor and pharmacist to help people with indigestion. The brand identity is about making people feel good. Nike began as a running coach pushing his athletes to be better. The consistency remains today.

It's essential to distill your brand voice and identity down to the core DNA. What are the attributes about your brand that remains consistent in people's experience of it no matter the context? From that foundation, you can begin to explore how your brand can participate in the remixing and recontextualization of modern culture today. A strong brand, like strong DNA, can endure adaptation to new environments without losing its core self. The streetwear brand Supreme is a great example of this. The Supreme logo is printed on skateboards, fishing tackle, coffee makers, drum sets, hoodies, just about anything you can imagine. Supreme's core dna of disruption and so strong that it not only endures, but transforms the contexts its placed in.

Pay attention to the classic Brand Study metrics of Brand Awareness both aided and unaided (meaning, were survey respondents shown your brand when asked if they're aware of it or not). Use these data directionally by segmenting their results across different communities and sizing them against results for other brands in your category within each community. As an Integrated Marketers, it's important to not think of other brands as competitors, but as potential collaborators. Use data to identify which cross-category partnerships would excite which pockets of culture. How might you and another brand help each other become Top 5 in your distinct spaces?