Distinctive Brand Assets, or, Give Me a Shortcut for Effective Marketing

Distinctive brand assets are the shortcuts that people build in association with brands. From the McDonald’s golden arches to Intel’s 5 note jingle, there’s evidence that these shortcuts make marketing more effective, yet the majority of ads don’t deploy them. 

Good morning!

A friend recently sent me this video which is the perfect example of today’s topic: distinctive brand assets. Guess the brands sponsoring this content 👇

Liquid Death x ELF’s little designed-for-TikTok collab is clever and got a lot of people talking. But what I want to talk about is how to build brands across channels without always showing a product or a logo. Which brings us to distinctive brand assets!

Distinctive brand assets are non-brand-name triggers, or shorthand for brands in people’s minds. Liquid Death own black and white and skulls: so much so that nearly anything black, white, and bold is almost certainly a Liquid Death ad - even though there’s no can or reference to water in sight.  

Here are some more examples:

• Visual - McDonald’s golden arches, the Economist red

• Verbal - Mastercard’s ‘Priceless’ tag, Oatly’s tone of voice

• Auditory - Intel’s 5 note jingle, Netflix ‘Ta-dum’

Here’s a harsh truth: Most people don’t care about brands. 77% of people wouldn’t care if brands disappeared. I know! Shocking! I know that doesn’t apply to you, dear reader, but for most people: it’s true!

I’m guilty of overcomplicating a lot of things (in life! in work!), but when there’s an easy win in my grasp, I will TAKE it. Distinctive brand assets are easy wins.

At their simplest, brands are memories. 

Creative is one of the unfair advantages brand builders have to refresh that network of memories. Great creative builds and triggers memories by capturing attention and building positive memories that come to mind at the right moment. 

A common mistake brands make is trying to fit in to signal that they are part of an industry or interest group. “The [insert category] uses trees and green, so we should too.” This is “safe” in the sense that you won’t catch any flack for these decisions, but you certainly won’t earn a memorable position by doing this. The biggest hack you can use as a brand builder is to consistently using the same, distinctive brand assets that people associate with your brand.

Basically, you’re building a Pavlovian response: see the golden arches, think of happiness. Hear the ‘ta-dum’, think about the show you’re binging on Netflex. Not surprisingly, logo is the most commonly used DBA. Interestingly, while audio is less frequently used, it’s more effective than visual assets - a potential opportunity for the right brand.

Let’s dive into the research 🤿

🧐 The rule: 

For more effective marketing, pick and use brand elements consistently.

➡️ Implication

Think beyond logos and make sure you’re clear on what your brand’s distinctive assets are: music, audio, creative style, voice, or characters are all potential distinctive brand assets to leverage. 

❌ Avoid this common mistake

Not showing distinctive brand assets in your ads. In a study of over 2,000 pieces of creative, less than 50% of ads deploy a distinctive brand asset.

🏆 The case study

There’s a clear link between marketing effectiveness and distinctive brand assets. A study by IPSOS use of brand assets are linked to stronger branded, and more effective branded attention. They are more effective than talking about or physically showing the brand name, and the highest performing creative ads show them 34% more often.

💰 Bottom line

Pick ‘em and stick to ‘em.

👨‍🔬 The OG behind this research

WARC, IPSOS

Summary

Whether you’re in the trenches shipping work or working in a massive organization where coordination is tricky, it’s worth asking the question: what are our consistent elements across all of our channels? What colors, sounds, visual elements or ideas are we using to build and summoning the memory of our brand?

🧹Do we like research 🧺

How’re you finding this newsletter? Normally I write brand breakdowns, but I’ve been trialling sharing some research focused posts, like this one. Hit the link & tell me.

✌️Thanks so much for reading - I so appreciate your attention!

Amanda

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