This week’s post comes from Charlotte White, our Managing Partner who is based in New York but writing from China where she is running a global brand workshop.
We’ve enjoyed many a family summer break with Neilson Active Holidays. We get sun and sand with a healthy mix of swimming, sailing, cycling. “Relax as Hard as You Like“, the brand’s long-running tagline, perfectly captures the spirit that has kept us coming back year after year. However, this year the iconic brand promise was gone, replaced by “Good Energy”. Familiar black and orange branded water bottles had been replaced with white ones promising “Good Hydration” in flowing handwritten script.
Maybe the change is driven by a re-positioning as a more holistic wellbeing experience. However, Neilson have ditched a distinctive brand asset and replaced it with a slogan that could easily be applied to numerous food, soft drink or wellness brands.
Neilson is not the only brand ditching distinctive, long term brand assets. The North Face was all over my Linkedin feed last week due its shift from “Never Stop Exploring” to “We Play Different”. Again, this looks like a move from brand to bland. A distinctive brand idea and consumer-focused call to action has gone. And in its place is a more internally-focused concept that could be applied to any number of brands in the gaming, sport or kids entertainment categories.
Given the readiness of companies to walk away from long term brand assets, it’s no surprise that only 15% of brand assets are truly distinctive, as we highlighted here in our recent research paper
A mere 28% of companies have in place a strategic approach to protecting, nurturing and amplifying distinctive brand assets, according to our research. Without such a process, there is of course a risk that new a Marketing Director will change things up in a desire to make an immediate impact.
So, how should you go about putting in place a more strategic to approach to strategically managing distinctive brand assets? Our work with brand teams over the last few years suggests three key parts to such an approach: Measure, amplify and track & treasure.
1# Measure your brand assets:
A first step in managing brand assets more strategically is to start using quantitative measurement. Our research showed that less than half of marketers surveyed (46%) use a quantitative method to guide brand asset changes. A further 19% use qualitative research and 1/3 were basing important brand asset decisions on judgement alone.
Case study: Red Bull
Red Bull’s consistency comes from a clear understanding of what its most distinctive assets are – the bull, logo, blue and white design – and rigorously codifying their application. Red Bull shows up consistently whether on a can, car, motorbike or soccer team. This consistency is shown in their brand assets performing incredibly strongly in Iconic Asset Tracking (IcAT) we did in partnership with Distinctive BAT (see below).
2# Create and Amplify your brand assets:
Once clear on your distinctive brand assets, build and strengthen them by working with creative partners to amplify them across all touchpoints. This way, you are building distinctive memory structure with every consumer engagement. For brands that lack distinctive assets, create new ones consciously. Think beyond brand slogans and logos to colour, sonic codes and characters.
Case study: Dominos
Back in 2021, as the world came out of lock down, Dominos launched a new campaign to encourage friends and families to reconnect and enjoy a pizza together, ‘yodelling’ from the rooftops to get grab attention. Now the Dominos yodel is an emergent asset that the brand continues to amplify across touchpoints to build its distinctiveness.
3# Track and Treasure your assets:
It is not enough to just know which are your most distinctive assets. It’s important to track their performance over time so you can apply the right level of fresh consistency without diluting their impact.
Case study: Pepsi
In our research paper, how the trend of flattening logos to simplify them for a social world was diluting their distinctiveness. Conversely, a great example of a brand that has nailed modernization is Pepsi. The brand has looked back and built on the semiotics that made the brand iconic in the 60s and 70s to give its visual identity a bold new spin. In this way, they are reinforcing and protecting their distinctiveness.
In conclusion, Neilson and North Face are recent examples of brands that have moved away from distinctive brand assets: a risky strategy that can dilute long-established consumer connections. In contrast, brands like Red Bull, Domino’s and Pepsi that protect and amplify these brand assets to help them stand out and foster recognition at every consumer touchpoint.
