Brand design vs. content design: one in the same or different?

[Charlotte]

Question for this group: Do your content marketing assets incorporate visual mechanisms that are not part of your brand design playbook? My background is editorial, and I'm used to design that best communicates the *information*. But what if the best information design introduces new or adapted treatments from the brand design guidelines? I'm not talking new fonts or colors, but new ways of using them. I want the content I produce to be more than "marcom" or "brochures", but I work for a company with really poor brand presence, so the CMO prioritizes brand compliance above information value. Which turns any content into brochure-ware, imho. Thoughts?