Identity Inspection:
is your brand identity sound?
In one line
an expert examination of the face your brand shows the market, the work usually sold as a brand identity audit, for self-funded technology companies, delivered inside two weeks.
The facts
Price
£2,500, one payment in full.
Length
Two weeks.
Your time
Two to three hours: one conversation at the start and the findings briefing at the end.
Done by
Luis Defaz, Brandian's founder.
Credit
Brand Identity, Renown, Coherence or Range, in full, inside six months.
When to buy this
A rebrand quote is sitting on your desk, and nothing in it says what is wrong with your identity.
Sending a prospect your documents has started to embarrass you, because your proposal, your website and your product look like three different companies.
There are brand guidelines somewhere, nobody follows them, and another version of your logo keeps turning up in decks.
Each is about your brand identity: the face a technology business shows the market. A funded competitor has its identity designed in one piece, paid for out of an investment round. Yours has been earning its keep for years, and an identity in use drifts. The logo is adjusted to fit a new format, a colour shifts to read better on a slide, and each change happens outside any approved system. Enough of those changes and the face is no longer the same at every touchpoint, and consistency is what an identity trades on: one face everywhere is what makes a brand remembered.
The product behind your brand's face may be the best in its category, but buyers meet the face first. The Identity Inspection examines that face part by part and puts the evidence in writing.
Where your credit goes
Where the findings show faults in your identity, the corrections are ranked, and who makes them is your decision. Brand Identity is the service that makes them. Buy it inside six months and the Identity Inspection's full price comes off the first instalment. The same credit applies to Renown, Coherence and Range, the three solutions that contain it.
The Inspection's work is that service's opening step already done, so you pay for it once. Where the findings show your identity holding, that verdict is in writing. The Inspection has narrowed where to look, and the other parts of your brand have Inspections of their own.
What it examines
Seven parts, examined on your sales material and public presence, and on the personality your brand is meant to have, where it's written down.
7
Your guidelines. Whether they exist, and whether your team could keep your identity consistent from them unaided. If none exist, that's the finding.
6
Your fit to the personality. Your logo and visual system against the personality your brand is meant to have. It answers whether the face shows it.
5
Your distinctiveness. Your identity beside your competitors', for whether it's recognisably yours. It answers whether a buyer could tell you apart.
4
Your versions in circulation. How many versions of the logo, tagline and your description exist, and where. It answers how many of you buyers meet.
3
Your identity in production. Whether each element survives where it must appear: favicon, square avatar, dark screen. It answers whether it holds.
2
Your marks. Logo, colour, typography and graphic elements, read as one system. It answers whether they're one design or parts collected over time.
1
Your name and tagline. What each says, whether a buyer would remember them, and whether either could be a competitor's. It answers whether they work.
The Inspection doesn't redesign your brand identity or write your guidelines. That work belongs to Brand Identity.
How the two weeks run
Day 1
The opening conversation, where you hand over the asset set: logo files, brand guidelines if any exist, and the templates your team uses every day, with the personality your brand is meant to have, where it's written down. The rest comes from your sales material and public presence.
Days 2 to 13
The seven parts are examined and the report written, with the demonstrations built where the rubric allows. A clarification or two may reach you by call or email; nothing else is asked of you until day 14.
Day 14
The findings briefing with Luis, where your questions are answered. Each finding opens on what it's costing you, with its evidence graded and the corrections ranked, and your further questions go to Luis by call or email, as many as you have.
A test you can run this week
Ask three people at your technology company, separately, for your brand's primary colour, the exact value they would hand a designer, and compare the answers. Three matching answers means the colour, at least, is under control. Three different answers means every touchpoint is free to carry its own colour, and inconsistency is creeping into your brand identity. If that's what comes back, the Identity Inspection shows how far the drift has gone and what putting it right would take.
Questions buyers ask
Can I cancel or postpone?
An Identity Inspection can't be cancelled or refunded, because the work is scheduled as soon as you buy; you can postpone it once, for three months at most. Inside six months, its full price comes off the first instalment of Brand Identity, Renown, Coherence or Range.
Does it carry the Performance Guarantee?
No. The Identity Inspection is a fixed-price examination delivered inside two weeks; the Guarantee belongs to Brandian's services and solutions.
Who does the work?
Luis Defaz, personally, from the opening conversation to the briefing.
Does this commit me to buying anything else?
No. You leave with the faults named and the corrections ranked; whether you act on them with Brandian or with anyone else is your decision. If you go on to Brand Identity, Renown, Coherence or Range inside six months, the Inspection's full price comes off the first instalment.
What if the findings say the identity is fine?
Then your brand identity is sound, and the problem lies elsewhere. The findings say where to look next.
Does a bad finding mean a full rebrand?
No. The corrections are ranked, and replacement is only one of them. Where the fault is fragmentation, the correction is enforcement: one version of each element and guidelines that hold. Where the fault sits in the design itself, the findings say so, with the evidence beside it, and the decision stays yours.
How is this different from the Brand Record?
The Brand Record measures how your buyer sees your brand; the Identity Inspection examines your identity as it stands. Buy the Inspection if you already suspect your identity is the problem. Buy the Brand Record if you can't yet say which part of your brand is at fault.
We have no brand guidelines. Is there anything to examine?
Yes. Your technology company has an identity whether or not it has guidelines. It's there in the logo files, the website, the proposals, the product and the rest of the marketing material, and that's what the Inspection examines. Missing guidelines are themselves a finding.
Inspections