The importance of brand consistency for life science, healthcare, biotech and pharma businesses

In an era of heightened competition and consumer expectations, cultivating loyalty and building trust are critical for a brand's success. To establish a consistent brand presence and build that trust, interactions with your brand must be cohesive across all customer or client brand touchpoints.

That’s where brand consistency comes in.

When was the last time you audited your brand to evaluate its impact?

Often viewed in isolation as a static one-off step in building a brand identity for a website project, the ongoing effect of brand consistency (or lack thereof) on a business is, at best, misunderstood and, at worst, ignored.

So, what is brand consistency, and why is it important?

Let’s first examine three similar marketing terms to avoid confusion. Often used interchangeably by those new to marketing, brand, branding, and brand identity are not synonyms; each has a different meaning.

Your brand is who you are as a business, including your qualities, values and reputation.
What makes you stand out from the competition?
How do your customers perceive you?
Do they trust your brand?
Do you deliver on your promises?
Do they identify with the story you tell?

On the other hand, branding is how your healthcare or biotech business conveys its core messages to its audience in a particular market. It’s the link between your company and your customer or client.

Branding includes your marketing strategy and subsequent marketing efforts to communicate your unique value proposition and core messages, aiming to create a feeling and a connection with your customers.

What about brand identity?
Often thought of as the brand’s logo, brand identity is much more than that.

Brand identity is the aesthetics and tangible aspects of your brand, sometimes described as the sensory parts of your brand, including the logo, website design, colour palette, typography, tone of voice, slogans, imagery, and depending on your product smell or taste, etc.

The brand identity gives your brand a personality. It plays a critical role in marketing your products and services, shining through all your communication so your audience instantly recognises your company.

So, what is brand consistency?

Brand consistency is more than ensuring everyone uses your correct logo. It’s about ensuring everyone involved in delivering your brand has a deep understanding of your brand strategy and value proposition.

It’s about company culture and the practice of acting in alignment with your brand’s values and mission while expressing a steady, recognisable brand identity across all communication channels and brand touchpoints.

Brand consistency is an ongoing challenge that requires collaboration across multiple departments and constant adaptation to customer needs, preferences, and expectations without compromising your brand’s essence: values, mission, and vision.

Why is brand consistency important to life sciences, pharma and healthcare businesses?

Brand consistency affects the perception of your brand in the following ways:

Improves brand awareness and recognition
Customers/clients will recognise and remember the brand because of its consistency, thus boosting brand awareness and connecting with your audience, increasing brand recall and making it stand out.
Builds trust with customers
Brand consistency establishes trust and conveys authenticity. A consistent brand communicates professionalism to your audience and a genuine commitment to delivering a consistently excellent customer experience.
Increases loyalty and advocacy, driving brand reputation
Consistently meeting customer expectations and delivering valuable content cultivates loyalty, encouraging repeat business and advocacy among satisfied customers.
Sets you apart from the competition and boosts revenue and growth
Consistent branding is the key to setting your company apart in highly competitive and saturated markets. It can also help drive traffic and capture the attention of your desired audience, increasing customer lifetime value and retention rate.
Attracts talent, inspires new employees and improves employee retention
A brand aligned with your mission and values creates a positive and inspiring work culture that motivates and empowers your employees and attracts and retains a talented workforce.

If your brand is consistent, you avoid confusing your target audience. Confusion can damage your reputation, sales, and customer loyalty.

How to keep your life sciences brand consistent

Brand consistency is essential for your business to remain competitive and grow. But it can be challenging to spot where you can make improvements.

Arttia Creative’s brand consultants understand the challenges of brand consistency in the biotech, pharma and healthcare sectors and are here to help.
Here are four ways you can start to improve your brand consistency.

Conduct brand audits
Regular brand audits can help you identify issues and make subtle changes to stay fresh. This ensures your brand resonates with your audience without losing the essence of who you are. The frequency of brand audits depends on your industry, target audience, and evolving marketplace trends.
Define your company values, mission and vision—and embed them in your company culture and core messaging
Brand consistency begins internally.
Do you know what your brand stands for?
Do your employees?Your core values, mission, and vision are the foundation of your company culture. They create a blueprint for employees to work toward the same goals, thus creating a positive and collaborative work environment where everyone feels inspired and empowered. Employee engagement brings increased productivity and performance, which creates a workforce of brand ambassadors.
Define your company’s core values, mission and vision and use them to build your brand identity and communication strategy. Employees who need help understanding what your brand stands for can unwittingly contribute to an inconsistent brand experience.
Identify your target audience and create customer profiles
Customer profiles can help you make branding decisions, from what tone of voice to use to which marketing channels to invest in.
A good customer profile includes demographic information and research around preferences, purchasing trends, pain points, and other information that help you understand your audience.
Ensure you have a consistent visual identity and create a company-wide style guide
Ensure that your visual identity (logo, colour scheme, typography, imagery, etc.) reflects your brand essence across all brand collateral. A well-structured brand style guide is one of the most important documents for brand consistency. Gone are the days when we could apply a single set of guidelines to every situation.Today’s marketing landscape is complicated, and how your brand interacts through different communication channels (e.g. LinkedIn, email or Google Ads) must be taken into account in your guide. A brand style and communication guide should contain the following:
- company’s mission, vision, and values
- logo presentations
- colour schemes
- fonts/typography
- acceptable language
- tone of voice
- content style guides for individual communication/marketing channels

The Takeaway.

Arttia Creative’s experienced team of brand professionals can help you create an impactful brand

No one knows your brand better than you. However, it’s still possible to overlook aspects of your branding strategy that could benefit from improvement because you’re too close to the problem to solve it.

We at Arttia Creative understand what it takes to stand out in a fast-paced life sciences marketplace, the challenges, and the ever-changing trends. We offer a fresh, objective perspective to help identify inconsistencies in your brand collateral, find solutions, and help you make better decisions to improve brand consistency across all channels and customer touchpoints.
Talk to us today

Belinda White | Creative Director