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The New Must-Have Guideline That's Missing from Your Brand Book

Paul Sandy • October 18, 2024
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Why ChatGPT Writing Prompts Will Become the Next Essential Element in Brand Guidelines

Brand guidelines have long served as a blueprint for maintaining a brand's identity across all touchpoints. Traditionally, these guidelines or “Brand Books” cover areas like logo usage, typography, color palettes, and tone of voice. But with the rapid adoption of generative AI tools like ChatGPT in the content creation process, I believe a new element will emerge as a crucial addition to these guides: AI writing prompts. Including ChatGPT prompts in brand guidelines will become just as essential as color guidelines. Here’s why.


The Rise of Generative AI in Content Creation


Odds are, your content creators are increasingly turning to generative AI tools like ChatGPT for sparking ideas, drafting social media posts, developing ad concepts, creating sales presentations, and even scripting videos. These tools are valuable for their ability to speed up content production and provide creative inspiration. However, with AI-generated content becoming an integral part of the workflow, the need for maintaining a consistent brand voice becomes more urgent.


While most brands already provide detailed tone of voice guidelines to ensure a consistent style across human-generated content, generative AI introduces new variables. Different prompts can yield vastly different outputs.


In a previous blog article, we touched on concerns about how using AI to generate messaging in “high-leverage” channels like your website and brand campaigns can distort your brand voice. Without specific AI prompts, it’s a certainty that using GenAI for content generation will result in inconsistency across channels. This is where standardized writing prompts come in.


Why AI Prompts Should Be Part of Brand Guidelines


1. Ensuring Consistency in Brand Voice


Just as brand guidelines provide a roadmap for color usage and tone, AI writing prompts can serve as a template to help generative AI maintain the brand’s established voice. By including standardized prompts in brand guidelines, companies can guide how tools like ChatGPT respond to queries, ensuring that the content more closely aligns with the brand's tone, values, and messaging.


For example, a brand that aims for a friendly, conversational tone might include prompts like, "Write a casual and upbeat introduction for a blog post about [topic]," whereas a more formal brand might specify, "Generate a professional and informative summary on [topic]." These nuanced differences help ensure that AI-generated content aligns with the brand's style, even when different content creators are at the helm.


2. Facilitating Faster Onboarding for Content Creators


Including AI prompts in brand guidelines can significantly speed up the onboarding process for new content creators. Instead of experimenting with how to "translate" tone of voice guidelines into AI prompts on their own, content creators can use pre-defined prompts that have already been fine-tuned for the brand. This can help new team members quickly produce content that matches the brand's established voice, reducing the learning curve and accelerating productivity.


3. Enhancing Creative Efficiency Without Compromising Quality


Generative AI tools are excellent for sparking creativity, but they can also produce content that varies widely in quality and style. By standardizing AI prompts, brands can provide a creative jump-off point while maintaining guardrails for consistency. This approach allows content creators to play around with AI tools and generate fresh ideas while staying true to the brand's voice.


4. Adapting to Rapidly Evolving AI Capabilities


The capabilities of AI writing tools are evolving rapidly, with each iteration offering more sophisticated text generation and customization. By including AI prompts as part of brand guidelines, brands can keep pace with these developments. Guidelines can be periodically updated with new prompts that leverage the latest features, ensuring that the brand's AI-driven content remains cutting-edge.


5. Strengthening Brand Governance


Inconsistent use of brand elements like colors and fonts can dilute brand identity, and the same is true for the tone of voice. With content being generated by AI, brands need a way to govern the quality and consistency of that output. Providing prompt guidelines is an actionable way to maintain control over how AI tools contribute to brand communication. It offers a concrete method for quality assurance, ensuring that all content — whether AI- or human-generated — meets the brand's standards.


What Should AI Prompt Guidelines Include?


To make AI prompts a meaningful part of brand guidelines, brands should consider including the following elements:


  • Sample Prompts for Various Use Cases: Provide example prompts for different content types, such as blog posts, social media captions, email copy, and ad headlines. 


  • Tone Adjustments and Style Specifications: Outline variations in prompts based on the intended tone (e.g., formal vs. casual) and audience segment.


  • Instructions for Fine-Tuning Outputs: Offer guidance on how to iterate prompts to refine AI-generated content until it meets the brand’s standards.


  • Do's and Don'ts for Prompts: Just as guidelines specify what to avoid in visual design, they should also include what not to do when crafting prompts, such as words or phrases that don’t align with the brand’s voice.


  • Framework for AI Ethics and Governance: Include ethical guidelines for using AI, emphasizing transparency, data privacy, and the brand’s position on AI-generated content.


The Future of Brand Guidelines: GenAI as a Core Element


Incorporating AI writing prompts into brand guidelines signals a shift in how brands approach their identity. It's an acknowledgment that AI is more than just a tool — it’s a collaborator in the content creation process. As such, it requires its own set of guidelines to ensure that the content produced remains true to the brand’s voice and values.


While some may see AI prompt guidelines as a "nice-to-have" today, they will soon be viewed as essential as specifying the exact hex code of a brand's primary color. In a world where generative AI is not just a trend but a staple in content creation, prompt guidelines will be the new standard for ensuring brand consistency across all digital and physical channels.


Integrating AI prompts into brand guidelines is a forward-looking strategy that allows companies to harness the power of generative AI without compromising their brand's integrity. By treating these prompts with the same level of detail as color palettes or logo placement rules, brands can create a more cohesive and adaptive identity in the age of AI-driven content.


Be sure to subscribe to our Humanize Tech newsletter. We'll keep you in the loop when we publish more content in our Gen AI and Branding series. Up next: Tips for How to Govern the Use of Gen AI for Images, Graphics, and Visuals.

How AI Agents Are Transforming Marketing & Sales Alignment

By Speak Agency • February 13, 2025
Marketing and sales are supposed to work in sync. Marketing creates the messaging, sales takes it to market, and customers get a consistent, compelling brand experience. But in reality? That almost never happens.

MVB: What Early-Stage Tech Brands Need to Launch a Minimum Viable Brand

By Speak Agency • February 10, 2025
For tech startups, creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) — the stripped-down version of your product that allows you to test core assumptions with real users — is a common approach to product development. But what about your brand? Enter the Minimum Viable Brand (MVB): the essential elements needed to present your company professionally and connect with early customers, without over-investing in elaborate brand development.

The Truth, The Whole Truth, And Nothing But the Truth. So Help Your Brand.

By Speak Agency • February 3, 2025
Let's cut to the chase: In a world drowning in digital noise and AI-generated content, brand authenticity isn't just a nice-to-have — it's your survival kit. Today's tech-savvy customers can smell manufactured messaging from ten browser tabs away, and they're not afraid to hit "unfollow" faster than you can say "corporate values." The Power of Brand Truth Here's the deal: brand authenticity means getting real about who you are as an organization. We're not talking about your product specs or your tech stack — we're talking about the raw, honest truth of why you exist and what drives your team to show up every day. Your brand truth might be buried in your startup story, your unique approach to solving gnarly problems, or the way you're fundamentally changing how your customers work and live. Take Microsoft's transformation under Satya Nadella. When he took the reins in 2014, he didn't just pivot the company's technology — he unleashed its authentic truth as an enabler of human achievement. This wasn't some slick marketing play; it was a fundamental shift from "Windows first" to "empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more." The result? Microsoft's stock price soared over 600% since 2014, and they've become one of the most valuable companies in the world. Why Truth Matters More Than Ever The numbers don't lie: According to Stackla, 88% of consumers say authenticity is crucial when deciding which brands to support. Even more telling? A recent Edelman study found that 81% of consumers need to trust a brand before they'll even consider buying from them. In an age where every startup claims to be "disrupting" something, customers are developing highly sophisticated BS detectors. They're not just looking at your product dashboard — they're scrutinizing your GitHub contributions, reading your engineering blog posts, and watching how you handle service outages on Twitter. Uncovering Your Brand's Truth Finding your brand's authentic truth requires serious introspection. Ask yourself: What technical problem made you angry enough to start this company? What conventional wisdom in your industry are you willing to challenge? What keeps showing up in your customer success stories? What principles would you defend even if they slowed down your growth? Sometimes your truth is hiding in plain sight. Look at Twilio. Their brand truth isn't about APIs — it's about democratizing complex communications technology. This core truth drives everything from their developer-first approach to their acquisition strategy. Expressing Truth Through Story Once you've nailed your brand truth, you need to tell its story in a way that clicks with your audience. And no, we're not talking about another "Our Journey" blog post. Consider how Stripe tells its story. Their truth isn't about payment processing — it's about increasing the GDP of the internet. This bigger narrative has turned what could have been dry technical documentation into a compelling story about empowering entrepreneurs worldwide. Their transparency about their engineering challenges and public infrastructure investments has built unprecedented trust in the developer community. Building Trust Through Consistency Real talk: authenticity means walking the walk. When Zoom faced security criticisms in 2020, CEO Eric Yuan didn't hide behind PR speak. He admitted the problems, implemented a 90-day feature freeze to focus on security, and hosted weekly webinars to address concerns. This transparent approach turned a potential crisis into a trust-building opportunity. The data backs this up: According to PwC, 71% of consumers say they'll lose trust in a brand if they perceive it's putting profit over people. And once that trust is gone, 46% say they'll stop buying from the company altogether. The Bottom Line In the tech world, where every other company claims to be "revolutionary" or "game-changing," authentic brand truth is your secret weapon. It's not about crafting the perfect message—it's about having the courage to be genuinely, consistently, unapologetically you. The next generation of successful tech brands won't win because they had the most sophisticated tech stack or the biggest AWS budget. They'll win because they dared to be real in an increasingly artificial world. In an industry obsessed with automation and scalability, never forget that authenticity is the one thing you can't fake. Remember: Your brand truth is like your source code — you don't write it from scratch, you refactor and optimize what's already there. When you commit to pushing authentic commits to your brand repository, you're not just building a better story — you're compiling a more resilient business that resonates with users on a fundamental level.
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