It’s a structured review of how your brand is currently being applied across your key communications and touchpoints, assessed against your brand guidelines. It identifies where standards are being maintained and where they’re not, and produces a prioritised action plan.
A brand consistency audit focuses specifically on the application of your visual and verbal identity across materials. A broader brand audit may also examine strategy, audience perception, competitive positioning and commercial effectiveness.
The scope is agreed at the start of the project and typically covers your most important channels — website, social media, email, print collateral, advertising and sales materials. The number of individual assets reviewed within each channel is based on how many are in active use.
Each inconsistency is documented, categorised by type and given a severity rating. The output is a prioritised action plan that distinguishes between issues that need immediate attention and those that can be addressed over a longer period.
Yes. If budget or time is limited, the audit can focus on specific channels — for example, just the website and social media, or just the printed materials. A scoped audit is more useful than a comprehensive audit that never happens.
Someone with access to all current brand materials and the authority to commission remediation work. Involvement of team members who produce brand communications helps build understanding of the issues identified.
Most audits take two to three weeks from receipt of materials to delivery of the report, depending on the volume of touchpoints being reviewed.
Yes. The report is structured to communicate clearly for a leadership audience — summarising the overall state of brand consistency, illustrating key issues with examples and setting out a prioritised remediation plan.
For businesses with active brand management, an annual audit is a useful discipline. After significant business changes — a rebrand, rapid growth, a period of high supplier turnover — an earlier audit is advisable.
The action plan should be prioritised and resourced. Immediate priorities — incorrect logo usage, wrong colours in advertising — should be addressed as quickly as possible. Lower-priority items can be scheduled into the normal workflow of the teams responsible.