On one hand, it’s important for all your marketing pieces to have a consistent look but it’s also important that an advertising piece that’s sent out periodically (such as a brochure
or an ad) changes in some way, because you don’t want the reader to look at it and think “I’ve already seen that”. Any ad you create has to be “similar” enough to previous work to maintain your brand continuity and at the same time “different” enough to make the reader recognize it’s something “new”.
It’s very hard to know when to draw the line (and when to change your campaign) and I can honestly say that YOU will probably get sick of your own campaign before your target market will (unless you have an irritating jingle that makes your clients scramble for the remote). Many big companies change their campaigns annually, but sometimes they’ll stretch that time out if they’ve hit on a winner. If you decide to keep your existing campaign for a while, don’t think that means your ads and brochures will never change during that time period. If your driven to maintain a consistent look & feel for your advertising, that’s great! Just be sure to make some [design] changes that are quickly & easily identifiable, to ensure your readers don’t think they’re the same pieces they saw last year or last week.
Once you’ve thought about how frequently you want to change your ads or your ad campaign, you should spend a little time thinking about how you can create brand continuity and what design and contextual elements should stay the same from ad to ad and which should change. Brand continuity is one of those “hidden” aspects of advertising that great designers think about, but most people on the outside don’t realize it’s even a matter of discussion. Ask your ad pro to show you how they’ve maintained brand continuity for other clients and to give you some suggestions about how they might do the same for you. If you’re currently proofing a new ad or brochure, be sure and ask your designer what aspects of that design might be maintained on future brochures to create & maintain your brand continuity.
