Modern Brand Building

I've been getting increasingly frustrated with some companies I have spoken to and their treatmant/attitude to their own brand (I won't name them right now, as we're currently tracking their activity as part of some client reasearch we're doing).

Company1:
Has no brand manual (the logo use varies from campaign to campaign, fonts are varied, writing style is confused, etc.) yet they think they have a great brand. It seems that sales are declining in their high-specialised market right now, but this is the 'customers fault for not understanding them'.

Company2:
Has a great 'brand bible', put together less than a year ago by a highly-paid brand consultancy, yet has started to ignore these guidelines because the person who commissioned/championed the work has left (they went on to bigger & better things). They have now been replaced with someone who wants to put their own "emphasis on things".

The thoughts that my companyIdeal Interface have taken from this experience has been:

1. Document your brand (if you don't know, how are your customers going to?)
2. Take every opportunity to use your branding across all channels
3. Be consistent, be very consistent

So once again, I find myself referring to the work of Mr Paul Isakson and his thoughts on branding in the modern age:
http://www.slideshare.net/paulisakson/modern-brand-building-presentation