We are bombarded by brands every waking minute. The ever-increasing siege of branded messages creates deafening noise within every single product/service category.
Does your brand cut through the clutter of its competitive set?
Can you change your brand name to any other word in your logo font and still expect to be recognized?
Coca-Cola
can. (top left)
Can you mask the vast majority of your visual identity?
John Deere
can. (top right)
Is your brand’s overall look & feel clearly obvious to everyone? Burberry’s is. (bottom left)
Is your brand identifiable if your name is removed from the message? Chipotle’s is. (bottom right)
These brands stand out because they have strong executional equities. These equities were all created by first making tough choices, then nurturing them with care and consistency.
Coke has leveraged the same font script for well over a century. When combined with the particular color choice, the word ‘enjoy,’ and the flowing line underneath, we see ‘Coca-Cola’ regardless of what word is actually there.
John Deere chose the bold green-yellow color palette a long time ago. It stands out and is immediately recognizable. I show this image in my branding workshops. Participants identify it immediately, even without the context of telling them what the product category is.
Burberry’s check pattern was created and trademarked in the 1920s and ubiquitously applied to various consumer goods ever since. When this truly unique pattern is applied to a new product, that product is immediately and clearly recognized as belonging to Burberry.
Over a decade ago, Chipotle made a very bold choice for a food marketer. Rather than picture a burrito cut in half to showcase the mouthwatering ingredients, it decided to wrap it in foil and risk the elimination of any appetite appeal whatsoever. This highly unconventional approach is brilliant. The foil-wrapped burrito has become the brand’s signature visual. There are dozens of fast-casual Mexican chains in the United States. But we recognize the billboard as Chipotle, even when I remove the name from it. The combination of the signature visual, the consistent use of white space, the copy tone, and the font make it unmistakably Chipotle.
All brands talk about equity elements, but not enough actually own the elements. If you don’t own them in the eyes of your target audience, you don’t have the equity you claim.
At LINK, we counsel our clients to do the following, in order to truly establish executional equities for their brands …
CHOOSE
: Most brands can likely expect to own
only
one
executional element within their respective categories. Maybe two. No more (in most cases, unless you have a massive marketing budget). So you have to make a choice and then sacrifice everything else. What do you really want to own? Color (e.g., Tide)? Logo font (e.g., IBM)? Tag line (e.g., Allstate)? Shape (H&R Block)? Brand look (e.g., Apple)? Signature visual (e.g., Old Spice)? Nomenclature (e.g., McDonald’s)? Sound (e.g., Intel)? Something else? If you try to own too much, you will end up owning nothing.
NURTURE
: Once you make this tough choice, stick to it. Nurture it. Implement it with hyper consistency across all target audience touch points. Capture it in a detailed brand guidelines document and make sure all brand stakeholders adhere to it. Consistency is key. Be consistent over time and across communication channels.
These are my thoughts on how brands can create stronger executional equities to connect more strongly with their target audiences. I would love to hear yours.
Thanks for reading.
p.s. If you’d like to connect more strongly with your target audience, I’d love to help. Please message me at [email protected], or call me at (513) 240-8383.
