Put it on repeat: brand codes & the importance of consistency

More than two-thirds of marketers (68%) say brand consistency has contributed between 10-20 % of their revenue growth. So for a company that does more than $10M in sales per year, that's millions of dollars lost due to inconsistency.

One of the most important questions we ask when designing a brand is "who will be managing the brand once you have it"? It's not a case of having some fonts and colours and cracking on with it. Brands need conscious and deliberate management. But we’ve likely all been there – when you’ve been working with the same brand for a while, things can start to feel… samey (especially if you're a designer). It’s tempting to want to introduce new approaches. However, branding is a long game, and familiarity breeds recognition – not contempt! Introducing new visuals here and there may seem like small changes, but without proper consideration, over time they can amount to a slow erosion.

Know yourself, and make a promise

The way a person looks, talks and moves, as well as where they're found, all contribute to how recognisable they are. The more familiar you are with someone – especially if the location is expected too – the less work they need to do to gain your trust next time. And over time, who that person is becomes pre-emptively understood by the room. People who have a real sense of self are the people who stand out. Branding is no different. This isn't about never changing, or doing the same things over and over again, but about how you choose to use familiarity, expectation, and persistence as currencies over long periods of time. Branding is a promise.

‍

When was the last time you really stopped and audited everything from the past few weeks, months, or year – where you were, and where you are now?

Keep an eye on the past

Marketing departments are often in a constant forward motion. As they should be. But when was the last time you really stopped and audited everything from the past few weeks, months, or year – where you were, and where you are now? Software like Miro or Figma are great places to start for visual consistency. Get as much work as you can up there – jpeg, PDFs videos. Is it consistent? Be brutal.

For most brands, it's likely there's far more meandering than you'd expect.

This is about stopping and slowing down. Next time you're reviewing work, get as much previous assets in front of you for review as possible. Put them on something like Miro for minimal effort. So when new ideas are being introduced, they're judged in the context of a brand that's already out there. Does it feel like a natural extension, or a completely separate expression? Do elements of it already exist in earlier work, that are now being reinvented or undermined, instead of reused? If this sounds pedantic – that's because it should be. Lean into what you have, or lean into change. But be deliberate.

The long of it

In the end, codifying your brand isn’t just about sticking to a set of rules. It’s about ensuring your identity remains consistent and recognisable, and isn't incrementally shifting without real intention. By playing the long game, resisting the urge to change too quickly, and sticking to your brand’s core values, you're ultimately helping build long-lasting trust with its audience. And with all this said – if you're still struggling to build on what you have, it may be worth considering if a larger brand exercise is needed.

Whether you’re starting from scratch, refining what you already have, or considering a rebrand, we can help you codify your brand. Get in touch with OtherFolk for an intro call - we're ready to chat.

Let's talk

Webflow Analyze vs GA4: Which one do you actually need?

If you are running or planning a Webflow site, do you stick with Google Analytics, or sign up for Webflow Analyze?

TBC Minute read

If you are running or planning a Webflow site, you'll likely want to consider how to measure performance. Google Analytics 4 and Webflow Analyze approach that differently once consent, traffic levels, and reporting requirements are factored in, which affects how much you can actually measure and act on.

Webflow Analyze

Webflow Analyze is built for immediacy; it sits inside your site, requires minimal setup, and gives you a clear view of what is happening without needing to configure events or build reports. Because it's essentially layered on top of each page in the designer, you can not only see where users are coming from and which pages they land on, but how they move through the site, where they stop scrolling, what they click on, and where they go next. For most marketing teams, that covers a large part of what they actually need day to day, especially when the goal is to sense-check performance and optimise pages for engagement, rather than run deep analysis. If campaigns are driving the right traffic, you'll still want to know if users are reaching key pages, and if they're continuing through the site as expected. Webflow Analyze removes the friction and technical roadblocks of digging through dashboards and translating the data into something usable. However, if you're looking for granular event tracking, advanced segmentation, or the ability to build out more complex attribution models, Webflow Analyze isn't your tool here. It tells you what is happening clearly, but it is not designed to answer more detailed or technical questions.

Google Analytics 4

Google Analytics 4 is built for completeness. It tracks users across sessions, captures events at a detailed level, and allows you to build a much more comprehensive view of behaviour over time. If you need to understand specific interactions, track conversions precisely, or analyse journeys across multiple touchpoints, GA4 gives you that flexibility and depth. However, the trade-off is usability; out of the box, it is not particularly clear, and most of the value comes from how well it is set up. To get meaningful insight, you often need to define events, structure your reporting, and spend time interpreting what you are looking at. Without that, it can feel like you have a lot of information but no clear answers. The technical learning curve with GA4 isn't insignificant, so although it's powerful, it asks more of the team to make it truly useful.

In practice, it comes down to the questions you're trying to answer, and whether you have enough measurable data to answer them.

Webflow Analyze vs GA4 in practice

In practice, it comes down to the questions you're trying to answer and whether you have enough measurable data to answer them. For example, if you want to understand how a campaign is performing, where users are landing, and what they do next, Webflow Analyze is great and will likely get you there faster. It's also easier to read and to trust at a glance, and fits naturally into how marketing teams sense-check performance and optimise pages directly in the designer. However, that only holds if there is enough data to work with. Analyze can only report on users who have actively consented, and if traffic is low, and only a portion of that traffic is measurable, the numbers can become too small to draw reliable conclusions from. For UK and EU sites relying on consent, that dataset can shrink very quickly.

With consent mode, Google Analytics 4 behaves differently, and it can still report and model data beyond fully opted-in users, which means it can often recognise a higher number of visitors on exactly the same site. It's not as immediate, but this does mean it remains usable at lower traffic levels where Analyze can appear almost empty.

Taken together, the two tools serve different roles. Webflow Analyze is useful for understanding how individual pages are performing, how users engage with content, and where to optimise layouts, messaging, and flow. Google Analytics 4 provides the deeper layer, helping you understand behaviour over time, measure conversions, and connect activity across campaigns and channels. If you need to track specific interactions, build detailed conversion funnels, or connect behaviour across multiple channels and sessions, GA4 along with Google Tag Manager becomes necessary regardless.

Brand Management

Brand refresh vs rebrand (aka when you just need to get your house in order)

Not every brand problem needs a rebrand. In many cases, the strategy still holds, but the way it shows up has drifted. That's where a brand refresh comes in.

TBC Minute read

A lot of B2B teams default to “we need a rebrand” when things start to feel off. In reality however, the underlying thinking is often still sound. The audience is the same, the positioning makes sense, and the business is moving in the right direction. However, what has changed is the way the brand is being applied.

How brands drift over time

Over time, brands drift. Not in a dramatic way, but through small, everyday decisions that slowly move things off course. A slightly different layout here, a new colour there, a deck that does its own thing, a landing page that feels disconnected. None of it feels like a problem in isolation, but it adds up.

You end up with a brand that looks familiar, but no longer feels consistent. Good work still happens, but it is uneven. Some pieces land well, others feel off, and there is no clear thread holding it all together. And when that happens, the brand stops behaving like a system and starts behaving like a collection of individual outputs.

That lack of cohesion creates drag. Teams spend more time making judgement calls, reviewing work, and fixing inconsistencies than they should. It becomes harder to maintain quality, not because the team lacks capability, but because the framework they are working within is no longer clear.

That is usually the point where a refresh is needed.

A refresh is not about redefining the business. It's simply about bringing the brand back in line with what is already true.

What a refresh actually does

A refresh is not about redefining the business. It's simply about bringing the brand back in line with what is already true, and making it usable again in a practical sense. It takes what exists, and tightens it, turning a loose set of ingredients into something more structured and reliable.

That means redefining how the brand actually behaves in real work; how layouts are approached, how typography and colour is applied, and how everything is used intentionally across different formats. As with any well-coded brand, this gives the team a clearer way of working, not just a set of assets.

In redefining and tightening brand rules, work becomes more consistent because there is less ambiguity. This also means production can also speed up simply, particuarly when volume increases, because fewer decisions need to be made. Output starts to build on itself, rather than varying each time something new is created.

None of this requires a new strategy. That is the key difference. If the core thinking still holds, a rebrand is unnecessary. The business does not need to redefine itself, it just needs to express itself properly.

Ready to talk?

Book a no-strings-attached chat with us to share your project, hear our initial thoughts, and decide if we’re a team you’d enjoy working with.

Book a 15 min intro call