Easy created brand templates

Customizable Brand Templates - brand compliant communication for everyone


Anyone can customize communication materials such as web banners, flyers, brochures, business cards, coupons, etc. and produce brand compliant content. Use easily customizable brand templates to empower employees across your organization to communicate in a brand-compliant way. Offer your subsidiaries, local marketers and partners customizable brand templates as a self-service and offload the central marketing department. Turn employees worldwide into corporate influencers and support their work as brand ambassadors. Brand templates not only reduce costs and improve brand image, they also increase the flexibility to roll out new campaigns quickly and in a targeted manner.

CHALLENGE: ADAPT COMMUNICATION MATERIALS WORLDWIDE 

In larger companies, there are hundreds of communication materials: from simple web banners and designed campaign advertising materials to product catalogs. These have to be adapted by central and local marketing with external service providers (agencies, translators, etc.) for countries, regions, languages, channels and target groups. The goal here is 100% quality at the lowest possible cost. Companies are therefore looking for a solution to enable local marketing (or local partners) to themselves adapt brand-compliant communication materials so that they can better achieve their marketing and sales targets, while at the same time strengthening the brand image.


SOLUTION: FROM STYLEGUIDE TO BRAND TEMPLATES

In the past, complex brand style guides were used to try to ensure the quality of external and internal communication. However, style guides are a complex and mostly also impracticable corset to explain the application of the brand. Especially when many people, some of them without design knowledge and especially with little time, have to work with it, mistakes are inevitable. Not everyone has the time to deal with a complex style guide or work through it. This results in manual quality checks, which in turn drive up costs and slow down processes. Contemporary marketing requires a more efficient approach with brand templates or marketing templates. These brand templates have the logic and specifications of the style guides virtually built in. They are " dummy-proof " in terms of design. Marketers can use them to adapt all designed communication materials in a brand-compliant way for all markets and goals, whether web banners, flyers, social media posts, brochures, case studies, etc., completely without expensive and sophisticated designer tools.

Find out in this post exactly which aspects need to be considered when choosing a good marketing communication solution and customizable brand templates:


Defining a Brand Template

What is a Brand Template?

A brand template is a marketing template designed according to brand guidelines and editable online to a certain extent. As a rule, brand elements such as logo, colors and fonts are predefined and cannot be changed. Such brand templates can be quickly generated in one2edit, a media and publishing software, and made available globally. Users can easily make text adjustments, exchange images, change the format, etc. in the browser. It is also possible to use the brand templates in one2edit for digital and analog communication.

 

What features should a brand template solution have?

There are many providers for print and digital brand templates. Unfortunately, many of them are not suitable for use in the internationally operating companies and decentralized marketing, because they do not meet the higher requirements for quality, workflows, rights, security, languages, etc. Large companies and SMEs need a solution like one2edit, which supports the following topics and questions: 

 

 

Brand compliant editing of Brand Templates

When customizing Brand Templates, do I see an exact preview of the output result (WYSIWYG editing)?

Yes, Brand Templates are edited in one2edit in WYSIWYG mode (what you see is what you get). This is especially important for designed print materials and PDFs. The Customizable Brand Templates are based on native InDesign files and are further edited without conversion losses / loss of quality (more about this in our blog article).

 

How is it ensured that the output is 100% brand compliant?

To ensure brand-compliant editing and output "in best corporate design quality", all elements in the brand template are initially defined for editing. Each element can therefore be protected granularly if required. As a rule, there are a number of firmly defined elements (logo, font, etc.), and those that can be edited depending on authorization (text, image, link, etc.). In addition, graphic elements that are part of the corporate design (such as lines, strokes, circles, shadows, etc.) can be protected. The selection of images can also be defined: You want to allow only certain images from the image database for a certain group of users, and for other users also those from a stock provider? No problem. With one2edit, it can be ensured in detail that no one is overwhelmed with formatting options, can " get too creative" or is too restricted in their design freedom.  

 

 

Brand Templates and Text Rules

Are there text rules for brand templates?

Yes, in addition to the "Automatic text correction" function, text inputs such as brand or product names can also be predefined so that they are always written correctly and in all languages (e.g. with trademark characters, upper or lower case). The typographic design (e.g. spacing, bold, italics, small caps, baseline offset, superscript/ subscript, font size, etc.) of text elements can also be predefined. This ensures not only correct spelling, but also brand-compliant design.   

 

 

Translation of Brand Templates

Is the translation of Brand Templates content supported?

Yes, since communication materials are usually localized into tens of languages (for 160 countries in the case of our customer Siemens). The Brand Templates in one2edit have a special feature: they can be translated automatically directly in the browser using AI translations from Microsoft, Google or Deepl. one2edit also interacts seamlessly with translation systems such as SDL|Trados, MemoQ or Across. The translations flow into the brand templates at the push of a button. This means that the rollout to any number of countries and languages requires significantly less effort than before. 

 

 

Brand Templates and Workflows

Do brand templates support collaboration (e.g. international campaigns and roll-outs)? And are there workflows for different work steps such as translation, quality assurance and approval?

The brand templates in one2edit have successfully supported collaboration in complex organizations for over 20 years. Workflows and the fine-grained assignment of rights and roles are an essential part of the solution. Workflows that have been set up once via drag & drop can be transferred to other departments and areas of use within and outside the organization - and flexibly adapted there with just a few clicks. This makes it possible to adjust ongoing projects in an agile manner: e. g. remove users, add editors or translators, create new process steps. The workflows can be scaled as desired and third-party systems can be integrated, for example, to automate processes. 

 

Management of Brand Templates

How are the brand templates updated and controlled?

Brand Templates can be easily controlled and updated centrally, even without interrupting the running process. Simply define which components of which templates are to be updated (e.g. logo, images, etc. for a specific language area). The team can work on the roll-out of a campaign even if fixed components or fine details of the template are still being changed. This not only ensures optimal time-to-market, but also speeds up the entire localization process. Users in marketing and content experts do not have to worry about anything. Updates and new templates are provided centrally. 

 

How and where are the brand templates made available?

Brand Templates can be used directly in one2edit or they can be easily integrated via API into brand, marketing, dealer, partner portals, the intranet, etc. They can also be easily networked with content sources such as the DAM/image databases or the Product Information System (PIM). 

 

Are additional design programs and font licenses required for Brand Templates?

Special programs such as Adobe InDesign and font licenses are not required for editing Brand Templates on the work PCs. Simply start one2edit in the browser, call up the desired brand template, edit it intuitively, save it in the desired format and use it.

 

Is it possible to track which brand templates exist and who is working with them?

one2edit is the single source of truth - all brand templates can be viewed transparently. A brand template can be activated or deactivated for all users or specifically for some users / markets / countries, or it can be archived for later use. one2edit also offers full revision security. When a particularly large number of people work decentrally with brand templates (including local trading partners, franchisees, agencies, etc.), revision security is an important issue. Only in this way it is possible to track who has adjusted what in the brand template. An editing log in one2edit always provides detailed information. It is also possible to export and archive it outside one2edit. 

 

 

Brand Templates and different channels / output formats

Can different formats be generated from brand templates?

Yes, one2edit supports print and digital formats. The possible output formats are PDF, JPEG and PNG. Any number of formats can be created from a brand template at the touch of a button - suitable for the respective channel, any size and always in line with the brand. For example, dozens of web banners in different languages or images for social media can be generated from one brand template in one2edit. 

 

Can Brand Templates be used for digital and printed materials?

Yes, there are no limits to the use of Brand Templates. They can be used for any digital and printed templates (advertising campaigns, marketing materials, POS materials, etc.), be it marketing, sales, service, HR, management, etc... :

  • Social media content (e.g. for Facebook or LinkedIn).
  • Flyers, posters, billboards
  • Vouchers/booklets
  • Sales documents
  • Business cards
  • Invitations
  • Web banners


Such brand templates for print and digital can easily be made available in one2edit - without the need to install font licenses or special programs such as Adobe InDesign. We would be happy to show you how it works in a short demo.