Your brand guidelines are no longer fit for purpose.

Way back when, brand guidelines were an essential counterweight – there to mitigate the risk of someone misinterpreting your precious brand. Somewhere along the way they picked up habits that now feel almost comedic – the classic 'Don't do this to our logo' slide that exists to stop Gary in Finance adding a drop shadow.

Brand guidelines were once expected to inform a predictable and often limited number of outputs. Brands now have an ever-expanding sea of touchpoints. Multiple agencies, sometimes creators expressing on behalf of the brand, across different channels that traditional brand guidelines can't possibly keep pace with.

And 'source of truth' has taken on new weight in a world of robots who are at best creative with the truth, at worst hallucinatory. A token-operated world with AI as the slot machine producing expressions of your brand. Nothing to worry about there, then.

At Cannes, Unilever's CMO Leandro Barreto said brands should be "custodians of the flame, not authors of every line." His suggestion is a solid one: brands no longer need to dictate exact consumer messaging; instead, ignite the core idea and through creators, communities and culture, let it rip.

This is the time to be rethinking rigid brand guidelines – amidst a justified revolt against 'Blands' and Facetuned identities.

A central device to protect the identity of a brand might still be necessary. But what if it evolved instead?

Picture guidelines that aren't a PDF gathering dust, but something alive – updated every time the brand makes something new, absorbing what worked and what culture pushed back on. A conversation, not a monologue of dos and don'ts. Less commandment, more collaborator with total recall.

But a system like that is only as good as the discernment feeding it. Which is where the human part comes in.

Brand guardianship needs a person made of cells. Someone who has lived the brand long enough to feel it in their bones, with the guts and the autonomy to decide what's right. When I ran my agency, Holler, for 15 years, it was instinctive – I could do it in my sleep. The brand was the beat of my heart.

It's not best story wins. It's best story that's true to the fundamentals but with space to play. I worked on Brand Innocent during its defining years, and Brand Red Bull in some of its most famous years – storytelling into uncharted social territory, staying faithful to their foundations.

Brands need room for a multitude of interpretations, all bound by the same foundational truth.

Succinct but intentional guidelines. Unshakable but flexible, aided by AI but guarded by humans.