How flexible should be the brand playbook?

In the past, the brand playbooks were literal books, printed with super expensive materials that should display all the rules, fonts, and Pantone's color palette in exquisite, fail-proof quality.

It was almost an oracle, carrying the blood and tears of all the marketing department and brand agencies that dedicated months and months to the task of having that set of rules approved.  

That obviously has changed with time. Brand consistency is still key, but our new world does not tolerate more to feel bored. Brands should be in a never-ending conversation with the zeitgeist, evolving to keep relevant. In that sense, the possibilities to create a brand playbook had grown a lot, both in form and in content. Digital tools can be used to store all the brand assets giving access to different stakeholders, with easy updates, and more possibilities about where to focus are allowed. Some brands will choose to talk more about the values and attitudes of the brand, while others will discourse about the visual’s specificities for each market. In a nutshell, there are no rules or one standard model anymore, and that’s the beauty of it!

Good brands are just like interesting and authentic people. They keep evolving, learning, and finding new ways to express themselves in distinctive (and sometimes quirky, my favorite ones) ways.

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There’s a subtle balance between consistency and playfulness in this matter that allows brands to grow while keeping interesting to their audience. To strategize that is a huge challenge, but it’s in the ongoing process of building a strong brand, on a day-to-day basis, that lies the most crucial part. That means that more and more we'll gonna see brand consistency being replaced  by brand creativity.