Branding bibles

I'm in the process of developing and launching a new project and I've reached a point where I want to gather up all the resources we have and put together a brand bible - everything that you could possibly need to promote the brand. A subset of this bible will become the press pack to be sent to journalists. I have the following list, can anyone think of anything I've missed?

Design:

• Logo - variety of sizes, file types (including vector), black and white and colour
• Colour palette
• Style guide (mostly based on the website css) including things like fonts and colours of headings
  
• Screenshots of website
• Head shots of chief exec and other relevant people
• Collection of smaller icons that are used on our website (bullet point images, favicons etc)
  

Text:

• Blurb - variety of lengths from paragraph to page long
• Mission statement/letter of introduction type thing from the project's leader/founder/visionary
• List of keywords/buzzwords - describing what we do and how we do it
• Biographies of key people
• Inspirational quotes from founders and interested parties (to be added to as we go)
  

Templates:

• Letter head for word
• PowerPoint
• Email signature

Obviously as the project continues we'll add more to this, maybe we'd create a separate 'history' text and include press releases. Can you think of anything I should be getting for the project launch?

The future is bright

BBC News has an interesting article on branding without using your logo. The Chill n' Charge tent at Glastonberry this weekend will let people charge their mobiles for free, but doesn't have any logos from the company providing the service... although the colour might give it away.

"We want people to walk away from the festival feeling more positive about our brand than when they arrived, to think that we have done something for them," said Mat Sears, spokesman for, yep, Orange.

Shoving your logo on the programme really doesn't have much of an impact on people. Even if you're a title sponsor, what does that actually get you? Is someone who goes to the Virgin V festival more likely to use their services? They're paying for the tickets anyway so the 'service' Virgin are providing is a little illusive.

Instead what Orange are doing is providing a useful and imaginative service, that is relevent to their brand.

The service itself is the brand.

I just hope the orange doesn't all turn mud coloured.

Olympic Spirit off to a false start

The Olympics are coming to London in 2012 and as a life-long Londoner and Olympics fan I couldn't be more excited or prouder. The logo on the left says everything that I feel about the Olympics in London, it's vibrant, it's got the Olympic colours, it says London in letters and shapes. All the elements work together to say what's important - London and Olympics.

Unfortunately, this is not the logo of the London Olympics, it's the logo they used for the bid process. Instead they spent a few hundred thousand pounds (I heard 400k, but I suspect it's a lot more than that) coming up with this.

The logo was launched with all the pretentious marketing-ese that is to be expected. Seb Coe said "It will define the venues we build and the Games we hold and act as a reminder of our promise to use the Olympic spirit to inspire everyone and reach out to young people around the world". Tony Blair said "When people see the new brand, we want them to be inspired to make a positive change in their life". The People said "Blergh".

Skipping all the pretentious 'what the brand reflects' stuff, it's just an ugly logo. The colours are non-specific 'bluey grey', 'reddy pink', 'greeny-turquoise' and, well, orange; all over an insipid yellow drop shadow. Even the official website isn't using the colours. The shapes don't really look like anything and are just crying out for people to doodle over the logos and make new shapes.

Drifting into marketing psychology, I wouldn't have automatically linked a jagged image with generating a feeling of inclusiveness. But then I'm not a disengaged teenager, which appears to be the principal target. By trying to appeal to a younger audience, they have managed to repulse everyone else. I haven't actually seen any comments on teenager response but grown-ups seem to really hate it. Even marketing experts are dubious.

So why have they gone with such an unpopular choice? The only options seem to be that they either didn't do any research with 'normal' people, their test group didn't reflect popular opinion or they just ignored the feedback. All those options are a bit concerning. But the message they are sending is that they're targeting a very specific demographic (and is that really a demographic that is bought/lost by a logo?) and don't care what anyone else thinks. That's the Olympic Spirit!