A brand guideline document is usually treated as a constraint — a list of things the team isn't allowed to do. That framing is why it gets ignored the first time someone is in a hurry. It's also completely backwards.
Consistency is not a rule you follow. It's the mechanism by which recognition accumulates at all.
Recognition is a balance, not an event
Nobody recognises you from one exposure. They recognise you from the twentieth, and only if the twenty looked like each other. Every asset that looks like you is a deposit into that account. Every off-brand one-off — the festive post someone made in a rush, the deck with the wrong red, the sign that used a different typeface because it was cheaper — is a withdrawal.
The brand that looks like itself everywhere is not being rigid. It's being remembered.
The other half: looking unlike everyone else
Consistency alone isn't enough. You can be perfectly, rigorously consistent and still be invisible, because you look like every other business in your category. Consistent and generic just means you're reliably forgettable.
So the real target has two halves: the same as yourself, everywhere — and unmistakably not your competitors. Hit both and people know it's you before they've read your name. That's the whole game, and there is no shortcut through it.