Retainers:
to keep your brand sound after the project
In one line
Brandian's two retainers, Upkeep and Guardianship, keep the brand work you paid for sound after the project ends.
A Brandian service or solution ends with brand work measured for five months once it's in use. A retainer keeps that work sound once the project is over. Your guidelines are revised as your technology company moves forward and new hires are inducted into your brand; share of search and what AI assistants say about your brand go on being measured.
Upkeep | Guardianship | |
|---|---|---|
Price | £300 / month • Billed monthly | £900 / month • Billed monthly |
Term | 12 months | 12 months |
Guidelines and assets | Maintained • Extended for launches, renames, new lines • Examples and templates kept in step • New hires inducted | Maintained • Extended for launches, renames, new lines • Examples and templates kept in step • New hires inducted |
Measuring | Quarterly • Share of search • AI assistants' answers about your brand • One-page trend note | Monthly • Share of search • AI assistants' answers about your brand • Drift Report |
Advice | - | Brand decisions • Brand platform implementation • Messaging and tone of voice • Brand portfolio growth |
Annual Brand Record | Offered at renewal • At a lower price | Included • At the end of your term |
Switching | Upgrade • At any time | Downgrade • At the end of the term |
Upkeep keeps the brand you paid for current, the guidelines, the inductions and the quarterly measures, while you keep your own eye on what goes out. Guardianship takes over the watching: every month Brandian scores what your technology company published against your guidelines, names every slip with its fix, and gives you someone to ask before the next brand decision.
What you receive
Five things a retainer gives you across the twelve months, whichever tier you choose.
1
Your attention back. The checking that ran during the project keeps running after it, so the job that always waits behind a customer, a hire or a release stays done without you.
2
Your spend, protected when it matters. The commercial effect of brand work builds from around the month the project ends, as Binet and Field's B2B study found, so the months a retainer covers are the months the return arrives in, with the brand intact to receive it.
3
Your brand, intact. Drift gets noticed while it's small, before the proposal, the website and the product start reading as three different firms again.
4
Your team, on brand. The guidelines stay the version in use, and every new hire learns the brand once and writes to it from their first week.
5
Your buyer's view, known. Share of search and what AI assistants say about your brand keep being measured, so when you next decide on brand spend, you decide on a year of evidence you own.
A test you can run this week
Take the guidelines from the last piece of brand work your technology company had done. Put the three most recent things you published beside them: the latest proposal, the last campaign email, the newest page on your website, whatever the three are. Check each against the guidelines: the logo, the visual system, the tone of voice, your unique selling proposition. If all three follow the guidelines, the work is intact, at least on those three touchpoints. If one has slipped, drift has started, and nobody is watching for it. Upkeep keeps your guidelines current and the measuring going; Guardianship runs the Monthly Correction Cycle on it, each slip named with its correction every month.
Questions buyers ask
Can we start with a retainer?
No. A retainer keeps guidelines current, scores what you publish against them, and compares each year's Brand Record with the last. Without a Brandian service or solution first there are no guidelines to keep, nothing to score against and no first Brand Record to compare with. The work comes first, and the retainers are offered when it's done.
Does it carry the Performance Guarantee?
No. The Performance Guarantee belongs to Brandian's services and solutions; a retainer carries none.
Who does the work?
Luis Defaz, personally, from the first revision to the last measurement of the term.
What if we want to cancel?
You can, with one month's notice. Leaving before the end of your term carries an exit charge of two months' fees; if fewer than two months remain, you pay the remaining months and no more.
Retainers