The hidden costs of off-brand content

When you think of branding as a promise you make to your customers and prospects, it’s easy to see how it goes beyond the aesthetics of logos and color schemes. At every touch point, your audience is looking for reassurance that you’re making good on your promise, whether that’s through your website presence, emails, or social media.

So, if your company’s content strays from your brand guidelines, you’re signaling to your audience that the company isn’t reliable, even if the audience registers that weakness unconsciously.

Any marketer worth their salt knows that an inconsistent brand is bad news, but they tend to think of it in general or even cosmetic terms.

Now it’s time to think of brand inconsistency as a needless expense that can be avoided.

Inconsistent branding signals flakiness

A strong brand builds recognition, and recognition builds trust. But when your content looks and feels different across platforms, like with mismatched tone, conflicting graphics, or outdated brand elements, your credibility is immediately called into question: You’re inadvertently sending the signal that your company is erratic and careless.

With every error, there’s a real and present danger that even in the back of their minds, the customer is thinking, “If they can’t get these details right, how will they get the details that I need them to pay attention to right?

Here are some common ways in which branding can go off the rails:

• Social media vs. website disconnect: On social, Ramble, your go-to for camping equipment for trips you take with your friends, makes allusions to Adventure Time that are so spot-on you send them to your friends. But then when you go to the Ramble’s website to order a new camp stove and a sleeping bag, the images are of Gen X couples getting some alone time that read as “The kids are finally gone!” You’re left unsure if Ramble understands you, right?

Lesson learned: The tone and messaging on your socials should match that of your website.

• Logo and design inconsistencies: Imagine if FurSure, your favorite retailer for pet supplies, updated its logo in stores but failed to do so on its website. You find something in the store but decide to order it online. The moment you land on FurSure’s site, you’d ikely be confused: Wait. Is this the same company? Am I in the right place?

Lesson learned: Don’t confuse the customer. Ever.

• Conflicting messaging in campaigns: Now try this scenario on for size: You bank with Acme Credit Union. During your commute, you see bus shelter ads that promote Acme Credit Union’s personalized customer service. But when you log in to check your balance, you get a pop-up that shares the joys of automated customer support. So, which is it, and is either one relevant to you

Lesson learned: Don’t be Acme Credit Union.

• Tone inconsistency across channels: You’re considering installing an app called Wellnest to help you maintain healthy habits at home. The screenshots of the app suggest that it’s casual and joyful, but when you pop over to Wellnest’s blog, every post is as dull as dishwater (and were probably written by AI). The inconsistency is so jarring you can’t connect with Wellnest and remember its message.

Lesson learned: If your writers are producing content that’s wildly different in tone, nothing’s going to stick with customers.

• Conflicting visual branding: You’re scrolling through Insta and see ads for Golden Hour, a company that sells the jewelry of your dreams and stands out with a distinctive color palette and typography. When you click on “Link in bio,” you land on a site that bears no resemblance to the ad and maybe even hurts your eyes. A few weeks later, someone asks you what you want for your birthday, and you think of that necklace you saw a few weeks back . . . but you can’t remember the name of the company.

Lesson learned: When you stick to the same colors, typography, and iconography (among other things) across channels, your brand is far more likely to lodge in the brains of your customers.

• Mismatched messaging in ad campaigns: A company called Almond Grove runs ads that trumpet its sustainable practices, specifically stating that it uses less water than its competitors. You click on the link to find out the ingredients in their smoked almonds, and the product page lacks any reference to eco-friendly practices. You suspect greenwashing is at play.

Lesson learned: If you’re going to brag about a selling point in an ad, make sure your product and/or landing pages make the same claims.  

In marketing terms, these are the hidden costs of unintended flakiness brand inconsistency:  

• Compromised brand integrity 

• Diminished customer loyalty 

• Decreased engagement 

• Lower conversion rates 

• Reduced brand recall 

• Failure to stand out from the competition 

Inconsistent branding breeds operational inefficiency 

If you work in content marketing, no doubt you get frustrated by reviewing content (either your own team’s or that of other teams), making corrections, and reworking multiple assets to reflect the corrections. You’ve likely made the same correction ten times in a week, and you’re frustrated by the tedium and by wasting time fixing the same thing, over and over.

Here’s how these inefficiencies typically unfold:  

• Silos: The product team is great at what they do, but they’re not content writers. And yet they’re producing content. And you rarely interact with them. Everyone has a slightly different understanding of your brand and selling point, and someone in product loves a word that has been banned by the content team, so you have to strike it again and again.

• Multiple rounds of approvals: If there’s one phrase that captures content marketing, it’s “too many cooks in the kitchen.” Multiple approvals from stakeholders across the organization is the norm, each with their own priorities, axes to grind, and interpretation of your brand. Endless email chains, conflicting feedback, and exhausting rounds of approvals suck up time you’ve set aside to do your actual job, and you wind up missing deadlines. Time is wasted (and invariably everyone blames the content team).

• Wasted ad spend: If branding elements like logos, colors, and messaging don’t align across campaigns, ads may fail to resonate with your audience and it shows: Your engagement and ROI KPIs are . . . unfortunate. For example, if a print ad uses an old palette and your digital ads use a new one, your entire campaign isn’t going to be as memorable, and you’ve blown budget unnecessarily.

• Difficulty measuring ROI: When branding and messaging are inconsistent, tracking campaign success can be a headache. When different teams use different CTAs, messaging, or visuals across social, email, and web, it can be very difficult to compare performance across channels and optimize.  

In operational terms, these are the hidden costs brand inconsistency:  

• Delays in content approvals and publishing 

• Delays in going to market 

• Increased workload for marketing, design, and compliance teams 

• Internal misalignment 

• Damaged morale

Inconsistent branding leads to compliance risks  

For industries with strict compliance requirements, such as finance, healthcare, and government, off-brand content carries an additional risk: running afoul of compliance requirements.  

For example, if misleading information makes its way into your ads, even unintentionally, you could be guilty of false advertising. If your assets don’t tick the boxes in terms of digital accessibility (e.g., color contrast), you’re not complying with WGAG, the global guidelines for accessibility. Or, if you’re not communicating data privacy and security measures, you could be failing to comply with HIPAA (if you’re in healthcare) or with GDPR (if you’re in finance). 

In legal terms, these are the hidden costs brand inconsistency:  

• Penalties 

• Lawsuits 

• Reputational damage

Siteimprove’s Brand Consistency helps companies stay on brand

You work in marketing, so you know: Maintaining brand consistency is a challenge, especially for enterprises that need to do it at scale because they’re managing multiple properties, different channels and platforms, and teams that could be spread from Texas to Timbuktu.  

Siteimprove’s AI-powered Brand Consistency is designed to make it easy for anyone on your team to get it right, and for you to step away from the pesky minutiae that brand governance requires.  

Brand Consistency automates content governance and proactively scans for inconsistencies that run counter to internal brand guidelines and industry regulations. You can rely on:  

1. Automated brand audits – Ensure content aligns with your brand’s tone, typography, and design across digital touchpoints.
2. Scalable validation – Validate hundreds of pages effortlessly so you catch inconsistencies before they impact brand integrity.
3. Actionable insights – Provide real-time feedback and reports to empower content creators while demonstrating ROI to leadership.

The bottom line: Consistency drives growth 

It’s easy to think of brand consistency as a matter of housekeeping and tidiness, but it’s far more accurate to see it as a no-brainer driver of growth. Organizations with a unified brand experience benefit from enhanced customer trust, stronger engagement, and increased revenue. Moreover, because so many companies don’t take a proactive stance with their brand integrity, companies that do take it seriously are poised to stand out from their competition.  

If off-brand content is costing you time, hurting your reputation, effecting your revenue, and making you want to tear your hair out, it’s time to take control. 

Learn how to safeguard your brand identity with Siteimprove’s AI-powered Brand Consistency tool.