Jul 23, 2026 · 33 min · 11 segments
**Everyone on your team can suddenly make content. That's not the win it sounds like, it's how a brand starts dissolving, one "good enough" post at a time.** **Ross Crooks, co-founder of Column…
Ross CrooksGuestJoshHostSo what is a brand content system? Um, why do companies need them? What problems are they looking to solve? And, um, you know, for the longest time everyone had brand guidelines.
I think not because a, you know, a content system isn't necessarily, like, a new idea.
We've all had ways of producing content over time, and that's, you know, been some combination of in-house teams and freelancers and agencies and, um, you know, some combination of those things in some, with some series of tools and processes, um, to create content.
Um, and w- I think what's shifted is that the tools have changed, obviously, and now we have this whole new population of, of creatives, essentially, of people who have creative ideas, who have something to say, and now, uh, who didn't previously possess, like, the technical skills to be able to design or animate or develop or, um, or, or sometimes even, like, write in the brand voice now are able to do that, those sorts of things.
It's kind of unlocking this, this whole new population of creatives, and that's a good thing generally, but it's, uh, I think it's also increased expectations for the volume and the velocity of content that's coming out.
And that kind of breaks our old idea of a content system because, uh, you know, those things used to be reviewed by the brand team, and everything kind of went through this filter of is it on brand, is it good enough, um, and, and got, you know, edits.
And I think that now that we have that velocity and that volume of content potential and expectation, uh, we don't really have the ability to kind of, to create all of that in an on-brand way, in a consistent way, and we don't have the ability to kind of govern it in the same way.
Yeah.
So what was, what was the tipping point, if there was one, in, uh, this thinking? Um, I know you mentioned that content systems aren't entirely new, but in terms of how we're thinking about them now, and I guess sort of as a follow-up or second part to that question, yeah, was there something that you noticed or that we as a, as a group started to notice in terms of what used to hold the brand together well, like, just not working or not being sufficient anymore?
I mean, I think it's one part of, like, what I mentioned in the first bit, which is that we now have, like, a volume and velocity of content that, that can't be produced in the exact same way as we did before because we were previously constrained through who had the skill, the technical skills to be able to create these types of things.
And we had a brand team who were all experts in the vol- in the visual language and all that, who could, who could monitor and measure it.
But the other piece is that AI has also kind of offered us a solution to some of that too, which is instead of the, and this is kind of one part of the, the modern brand system that we'll probably talk, you know, talk more about.
But, um, the most important part, the foundation went from being these brand guidelines that lived in docs and in a PDF that were on a drive somewhere, and people would reference it and try to adhere to it, to those things that, that brand being actually, like, encoded in vis- in, in instructions that can be, uh, read and used by the AI tools that people are using to create content.
Um, which is just a much more streamlined and kind of sophisticated way of actually getting to that, um, initial starting point of, like, an on-brand, um, visual content.
And I don't think that's, you know, it's not just about taking your brand guidelines and feeding them into AI, um, because now there's a layer of instructions and, uh, creative taste and judgment and decision-making that we can also, uh, feed into that to where it's not just trying to adhere to something, but it's also understanding how that brand team is making decisions over time and how they're-- how do we sort of encode their taste into, um, the, the system as well.
So it's, um, not creating from a fixed, uh, starting point of, like, you know, a codified brand guideline, but rather, like, something that constantly learns and improves over time.
So what is a brand content system? Um, why do companies need them? What problems are they looking to solve? And, um, you know, for the longest time everyone had brand guidelines.
I think not because a, you know, a content system isn't necessarily, like, a new idea.
We've all had ways of producing content over time, and that's, you know, been some combination of in-house teams and freelancers and agencies and, um, you know, some combination of those things in some, with some series of tools and processes, um, to create content.
Um, and w- I think what's shifted is that the tools have changed, obviously, and now we have this whole new population of, of creatives, essentially, of people who have creative ideas, who have something to say, and now, uh, who didn't previously possess, like, the technical skills to be able to design or animate or develop or, um, or, or sometimes even, like, write in the brand voice now are able to do that, those sorts of things.
It's kind of unlocking this, this whole new population of creatives, and that's a good thing generally, but it's, uh, I think it's also increased expectations for the volume and the velocity of content that's coming out.
And that kind of breaks our old idea of a content system because, uh, you know, those things used to be reviewed by the brand team, and everything kind of went through this filter of is it on brand, is it good enough, um, and, and got, you know, edits.
And I think that now that we have that velocity and that volume of content potential and expectation, uh, we don't really have the ability to kind of, to create all of that in an on-brand way, in a consistent way, and we don't have the ability to kind of govern it in the same way.
Yeah.
So what was, what was the tipping point, if there was one, in, uh, this thinking? Um, I know you mentioned that content systems aren't entirely new, but in terms of how we're thinking about them now, and I guess sort of as a follow-up or second part to that question, yeah, was there something that you noticed or that we as a, as a group started to notice in terms of what used to hold the brand together well, like, just not working or not being sufficient anymore?
I mean, I think it's one part of, like, what I mentioned in the first bit, which is that we now have, like, a volume and velocity of content that, that can't be produced in the exact same way as we did before because we were previously constrained through who had the skill, the technical skills to be able to create these types of things.
And we had a brand team who were all experts in the vol- in the visual language and all that, who could, who could monitor and measure it.
But the other piece is that AI has also kind of offered us a solution to some of that too, which is instead of the, and this is kind of one part of the, the modern brand system that we'll probably talk, you know, talk more about.
But, um, the most important part, the foundation went from being these brand guidelines that lived in docs and in a PDF that were on a drive somewhere, and people would reference it and try to adhere to it, to those things that, that brand being actually, like, encoded in vis- in, in instructions that can be, uh, read and used by the AI tools that people are using to create content.
Um, which is just a much more streamlined and kind of sophisticated way of actually getting to that, um, initial starting point of, like, an on-brand, um, visual content.
And I don't think that's, you know, it's not just about taking your brand guidelines and feeding them into AI, um, because now there's a layer of instructions and, uh, creative taste and judgment and decision-making that we can also, uh, feed into that to where it's not just trying to adhere to something, but it's also understanding how that brand team is making decisions over time and how they're-- how do we sort of encode their taste into, um, the, the system as well.
So it's, um, not creating from a fixed, uh, starting point of, like, you know, a codified brand guideline, but rather, like, something that constantly learns and improves over time.
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