Distinctive Brand Assets: A Key Element in Brand Growth

Distinctive Brand Assets: An Introduction

Distinctive brand assets are non-brand-name elements that can trigger the brand name into memory for category buyers. They can be audio, verbal, or visual, and they play a vital role in getting brands thought of in buying situations (Mental Availability).

What makes for strong distinctive assets?

• Recognition: Brand assets need to be widely recognised by category buyers in order to be effective. This means that they need to be noticeable and memorable. For example, the McDonald’s Golden Arches and the Intel Inside jingle are both highly recognised brand assets.
• Uniqueness: The more unique a brand asset is, the more likely it is to cue your brand and only your brand. Specifically, the Nike tick and the Coca-Cola bottle are highly distinctive brand assets – they’re unlikely to cue other brands.

Types of distinctive brand assets

• Audio distinctive brand assets: include jingles, sound effects, and music. For example, the Intel Inside jingle and the McDonalds whistle are both distinctive audio brand assets.
• Verbal distinctive brand assets: include slogans, taglines and brand messages. Specifically, Nike’s “Just Do It” slogan and Kit-Kat’s “Have a break, have a Kit Kat” brand tagline are both distinctive verbal brand assets.
• Visual distinctive brand assets: include logos, symbols, packaging, celebrities, characters and colour schemes. For example, the Geico gecko and the Nike “swoosh” are both distinctive visual brand assets.

Difficulties in building distinctive brand assets

There are 2 key difficulties in building distinctive brand assets:

• Lack of consistency: Brand assets need to be used consistently across all channels and touchpoints. This helps to reinforce their association with the brand. It can be challenging to maintain consistency in the use of brand assets across all channels and touchpoints, especially when new marketing agency teams or come onto a brand.
• Lack of focus: Brands often try to build too many distinctive assets. This can spread their resources too thin and make it difficult to achieve real distinctiveness.
• Lack of investment: Brands often don’t invest enough in developing and promoting their distinctive assets.
• Lack of measurement: Brands often don’t measure the effectiveness of their distinctive assets. This makes it difficult to know what’s working and what’s not.

The importance of prioritizing and measuring distinctive brand assets

It is important to prioritize and measure distinctive brand assets. This helps to ensure that brands are investing in the right assets and that they are effective. As a result, brands can make better decisions about how to allocate their resources and build stronger brands.

In summary, Distinctive brand assets are essential for building strong brands. By understanding the key factors that impact distinctiveness and by prioritising and measuring their distinctive assets, brands can increase their chances of success.  If you’d like to know more about how Bamboozled helps their clients prioritise their Distinctive Brand Assets then please get in touch.