The Power Of Distinctive Brand Assets

Mascots, Apple Phones, and The Calgary Chamber of Commerce.

Author

Pedro Porto Alegre
December 06, 2023

In this edition:

Column: The Power Of Distinctive Brand Assets

In brand marketing there’s a metric called “brand clarity”, which when firing at all cylinders holds the keys to fandom.

But before we dive into what brand clarity means exactly, we need to work backwards. Why building a fandom is important, anyway?

Let’s run a quick experiment — each of the following distinctive assets are tightly associated with a respective brand (I’ll share the answers at the end of this article). How many of these do you know?

  • Triangle = salty snack brand

  • Gecko = auto insurance brand

  • Check = sports apparel brand

  • Mermaid = coffee brand

  • Stripes = sports apparel brand

  • Tiger = breakfast food

  • Golden Harp = beer brand

  • Horse = beer brand

Getting to own a distinctive asset is incredibly difficult and takes decades of consistent and persistent brand building efforts. These involve running ads that not only have large reach, but also high frequency. It involves incorporating such assets in every piece of communication that goes out. And far more important than that, it requires associating said assets with a fundamental truth — a human, category, or brand truth — , one that consumers can not only relate to, but also get behind.

When you build an audience that perceives your brand as a badge for something that everyone in their community “just gets it”… well folks, you have yourself a fandom.

Marketers Don’t Build Brands, Fans Do

The power of a highly engaged audience, also known as a fandom, is that it becomes an endless well of creative ideas. If you stay true to your community’s beliefs, it becomes a gift that keeps on giving.

If you’re a sports fan you can certainly relate to being part of a fandom. There’s very few places you can walk into where people from all backgrounds, socioeconomic statuses, and creeds come together as one. That’s the power of live sports. Grown men will hug and cry over a championship or weep on each other’s shoulders over a devastating loss. It’s quite the sight to see.

But not every company has the sway of a city behind them. Instead they have the opportunity to build communities that are not bound by geographical limitations, and still leverage similar strategies that sports team use to co-create values and beliefs that their fans share in common.

The key piece here is “co-create”. In today’s world, consumers are not looking for companies to tell them what to believe in or how to behave — they’re looking for businesses that share similar values as them which allow them to help shape the brands that represent said beliefs. This exchange of ideas becomes almost like a dance, where these conceptual entities that we have come to call brands are fluid in how they show up without compromising the fundamental values shared by the community.

When a brand reaches such a level of trust, their distinctive assets oftentimes become a symbol to the public that signals “I am part of this sub-culture”.

Distinctive assets come in a variety of ways such as patterns, an iconic voice, a packaging shape, but they typically involve a logo and, when appropriate, a mascot.

Having iconic distinctive assets can be a major driver of brand clarity. This pesky metric is extremely difficult to improve because it involves having nailed your positioning and then effectively bringing it to life through creative assets.

Brand clarity is also tough to measure. It requires brand studies around aided and unaided recall, where researchers will ask questions such as “when you think of ridges, which salty snacks brand comes to mind?” (hint, Ruffles!).

This means that, if you’re a brand that wants to begin entrenching a distinctive asset into your consumers’ minds, every piece of communications needs to tactfully incorporate these assets into them — from visual representations of a ridge, all the way to the sound of the crunch when people eat it, everything needs to remain consistent and protected.

For example, if you’re Doritos and one of your distinctive assets is the triangle, you need to build communications that incorporate this shape in clever and breakthrough ways — such as when the brand ran a spot where Jack Harlow quit rapping to become a triangle player. Eventually, Doritos was running spots where they never even mentioned its name or showed the logo: the triangle said it all.

Kill The Mascot!

Brand mascots have come to be one of the most effective ways to drive brand clarity known to man. So much so that years ago, when Budweiser wanted to move on from their notorious “Bud”-“Weis”-“Er” frogs in order to give its iconic Clydesdales enough room to breathe again, they used their Super Bowl slot to shoot an ad where they killed the frogs.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Iconic mascots such as Tony The Tiger, Pillsbury Doughboy, Mr. Peanut, Chester Cheetah, Energizer Bunny, and the Michelin Man have played such a part in shaping culture that nowadays people will collect items with their various iterations over the years.

Mascots have a few things going in their favour:

(1) They humanize brands by giving it an ambassador voice;

(2) They embody the brand’s personality in a relatable way, and;

(3) They generate excitement and goodwill.

Oftentimes, these characters also bring a baggage of preconceptions with them that drive home the brand’s identity even further (such as bunnies’ stamina or a cat’s mischievousness).

“The Power of You - Distinctive Brand Assets”. Ipsos. May 2020.

Now, should every brand have a mascot? Despite brands that have used their mascots effectively score higher in brand clarity than their peers, not every category benefits from them.

For example, if you sell fitness supplements you likely want to show a fit person; if you sell shampoo, a real person with real hair is more relatable; if you make face cream, same story. You see the trend — if it relates to someone’s physical appearance, real humans often perform better.

How about B2B businesses? While it’s not common to see B2B mascots in the wild, that’s not to say that they aren’t welcome in that arena. It goes back to how your customers are making decisions — if they’re looking to make serious and consequential decisions about the future of their business, a mascot won’t do much good. But if your B2B company is in the business of making things easier and more joyful to interact with (such as Salesforce or MailChimp), a mascot will go a long way in making it more approachable and relatable (cue Astro and Freddie The Chimp).

Being Noticed and Becoming Memorable

Whether you lean into a shape, a sound, or a mascot, it’s imperative that what you choose is ownable to your brand and has enough legs to stand on for a long time.

It’s a big decision to introduce a distinctive asset out of the blue — most brands grow into them — so if you don’t have one yet, think about what’s unique about your value proposition. How can you begin flexing those muscles more often and more consistently across your communications?

Take, for example, Coke’s succinct 1915 brief to the packaging agency that designed their iconic bottles:

“A bottle so distinct that it could be recognized by touch in the dark or when lying broken on the ground.”

Whether you’re manufacturing a distinctive asset from zero, or believe you might have something your brand is already known for, driving brand clarity with your fans will yield some of the best ROI your company could ever dream of.

Answers: Doritos, Geico, Nike, Starbucks, Adidas, Frosted Flakes, Guinness, Budweiser.

Inspiration: Apple’s The Lost Voice

Another exceptional spot from Apple dropped last week.

It feels like artistic ads that fold the key message tactfully into them is making a come back.

I believe that's when advertising is at its best.

“Accessibility is part of everything we do at Apple.” Sarah Herrlinger

Upcoming Events: Confluence YYC: Marketing

  • Thu Dec 7th 5:00pm - 7:30pm

  • Venue 308, 308 11 Ave SE #110, Calgary, AB T2G 0Y2, Canada

Join me at the Calgary Chamber for the fifth and final installment of the 2023 Confluence YYC series, focused on marketing strategies that make an impact.

As part of the panel, we will discuss our experience developing unique marketing campaigns that utilize social media, email marketing, compelling messaging, and out-of-the-box approaches that will help you reach new audiences and retain existing clients.

Attendees will have the opportunity to network and discuss shared challenges and celebrate wins with like-minded professionals from all corners of the Calgary business community.

I’ll be part of the panel alongside other great marketers.

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