Brand strategy

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Distinctive brand assets

Lesson 8 of 20 in Brand strategy.

Jenni Romaniuk | Designing Distinctive Brand Assets · BRANDERMAN Podcast
Lesson

The idea comes out of Jenni Romaniuk's marketingscience.info work at Ehrenberg-Bass and it is measured rather than argued. Show category buyers the asset with the name removed (the shape of the bottle, the two notes, the colour, the animal) and record two numbers. Fame is how many name your brand. Uniqueness is how many name only your brand. Plot the two and you get a grid that tells you, without a debate, which parts of your identity are load-bearing and which are decoration you are paying to keep consistent.

shapecolourmarktypetaglinerecognised with the name covered upan asset nobody can name without help is not one yet
Five brand assets ranked by how many people recognise them without the name.
Dotted arrows fan out from a green leaf to a whole row of leaf-marked jars, while a single arrow runs from an orange zigzag to the one jar that carries it.
A green leaf points at every jar in the aisle, so it helps rivals as much as its owner. An odd orange zigzag points at one jar only, which is what makes it an asset.
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  1. Question 1, locked

    You show twenty category buyers your green leaf with the name stripped off. Nearly all of them recognise it. None of them name only you. What is the leaf doing for you?

    • Earning its keep, since recognition at that level is rare and hard to buy
    • Failing on fame, which a few more years of consistent use will fix
    • Nothing you want. It is famous and not unique, so it points at the whole aisle and advertises for your competitors
    • Working as the category signal, which is a logo's first job anyway
  2. Question 2, locked

    Which of these words means this? “The share of category buyers who name your brand when shown the asset alone.”

    • Salience
    • Category entry point
    • Fame
    • Physical availability
  3. Question 3, locked

    Which of these words means this? “Writing the asset down as a rule so it survives the next agency, the next manager and the next budget cut.”

    • Decision log
    • Stakeholder interview
    • Discovery
    • Codification

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