The importance of consistency for a brand

Brand identity is the brand's way of communicating its image to customers, by always keeping it in line with its core values​, identity, and style.

In recent times we have seen a rapid evolution of e-commerce and an increase in the use of various channels and marketplaces, to display and sell products. Shoppers have easily discovered new stores and new brands, with the possibility of buying products of any type and from almost everywhere in the world. As a result, the difficulty for brands to emerge and distinguish themselves from the competition has also increased. The importance of a brand's consistency is often put aside due to the constant search to increase sales and the fear of being left behind.

It is essential to understand that clients are looking for optimized product content, no matter the channel they are shopping on. Keeping the product information always consistent and updated is key to giving them enhanced shopping experiences. Consistency leads to trust, and trust leads to loyalty. Lack of consistency across channels is often the obstacle that makes a company's road to success difficult.

A consistent brand presentation is key when building a strong brand for the long term. It shows who we are, what we do, and how we inspire and support our target group in their needs.Jan-Willem de Munick Keizer, Director at SUITSUIT

SUITSUIT is a brand with a well-established and strong identity; it wants to communicate a clear message to its defined target group. Thanks to their design, logo, brand colours, and way of communicating their core values, the customer immediately distinguishes one of their products among others. On their website, they share their story and showcase their collections with enriched product information, accurate descriptions, functional tips and relevant pictures. But unforstunately it didn't work the same on their other sales channels.

The difficulties of maintaining consistency through channels

With great international ambitions, SUISUIT has also embarked on the multi-channel and cross-border path and started selling on multiple marketplaces. This is where they encountered some challenges that could threaten their brand identity.

What we often ran into, is that different partners and marketplaces used their own product information, images and descriptions. This was at the expense of a consistent brand presentation. The product presentation on the other channels negated what we tried to convey through our own platform.
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Jan-Willem de Munick Keizer, Director at SUITSUIT‍

A centralized solution for product information

As the company grew and their inventory and product variations steadily increased, they realized that keeping up with all that data took a lot of effort and valuable time. Moreover, other retailers' mismanagement of product information was threatening their brand identity and values.
By choosing KatanaPIM to manage their product information, they soon found a great solution:

We now have one central place where all our product information is collected and defined as a single source of truth. The product information in KatanaPIM is therefore leading at all times.

Jan-Willem de Munick Keizer, Director at SUITSUIT‍

By importing and centralizing all product data into KatanaPIM, the company has now complete control of SUITSUIT's product information. With the help of the PIM tool, they are now confident that all data is complete before the product goes on sale and the descriptions are distributed correctly on all channels.

In the images below, we can see a concrete example of what one of their famous products looks like on the different sales channels:

We can immediately see that the images create a strong impact, by communicating the coherence and identity of the brand. Furthermore, the product information really stands out: all four channels show the same descriptions, enriched with details, attributes and related products.
By making their product instantly recognizable on all these marketplaces, they gain their customers' trust, showing a constant presence, but above all, always in line with their brand.

Building trust through brand consistency is a great way to stand out among competitors, to be recognized by your customers and to give them the best shopping experience, at any time and everywhere, across all channels.