Appearing in many places does not automatically help customers remember a brand for longer. Memory builds up only when every appearance sends the same recognition signal. If each touchpoint says something different, the human brain takes them as several separate brands, not one brand growing stronger.
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Your brand shows up in many places, yet customers still don't remember it. The reason is usually not a lack of touchpoints, but that each touchpoint tells a different story.
The human brain remembers in layers
A memory isn't recorded once and finished. Each time someone encounters a familiar signal, that layer of memory is reinforced further.
Byron Sharp and the Ehrenberg-Bass research team call this the process of building mental availability in customers' minds. The conditions for it to happen: the signals must be repeated and they must be consistent.
When signals change at every touchpoint, the human brain does not add them up into a single brand image. It processes them as separate stimuli and starts over each time.
A brand is the customer's perception of a product, service or company. That perception forms in each individual person, and is not something a business can decide unilaterally.
Marty Neumeier, The Brand Gap
Many touchpoints but zero memory
Picture a brand that appears blue on social media, orange on its packaging and black on its business cards, with a different tone of voice in each place.
Customers come into contact with you many times, but each time they see a different face. The result: nothing accumulates.
This situation is far more common than brand owners realize.
Every small decision made without clear guidelines can break the chain of accumulation.
For most small and mid-sized brands, the problem isn't a lack of brand identity. The problem is being unable to operate what already exists.
Recognition signals: what is truly remembered
Jenni Romaniuk, co-author of the How Brands Grow body of research, calls these elements distinctive brand assets.
These are the elements that, when customers see them, make them think of that brand right away without needing to read the name.
Primary color, typeface, logo shape, sonic logo and tone of voice can all be distinctive brand assets.
Romaniuk measures the value of each asset along two dimensions: familiarity (how many people recognize it) and uniqueness (whether it gets confused with another brand).
A strong asset is one that scores high on both dimensions.
That impression forms before a customer reads a single word. Consistent visual signals decide what it is.
The conditions for touchpoints to multiply instead of fragment
Being present on many channels is only valuable when two conditions are met at the same time.
First: every touchpoint carries the same core set of recognition signals. They don't have to look identical, but they must belong to the same system.
Second: enough frequency of exposure for the human brain to form an association. Seeing something once is not enough. Repetition is what creates memory.
- The same primary color on every touchpoint, whether it is packaging, a social media page or a quotation document.
- The same typeface or type family. Not the same size, but the same family.
- The same tone of voice. Formal or approachable, but consistent at the same level.
- The same approach to imagery. Lifestyle photography or pure product photography: choose one direction and hold to it.
When both conditions are met, every time a customer meets your brand, the layer of memory grows thicker. Not additive, but multiplicative.
When touchpoints cancel each other out
When a brand opens more channels without controlling consistency, each new channel dilutes the overall image.
This happens often in three situations.
- Many people in the organization make their own decisions about visuals without a shared guideline document.
- Guidelines exist but they're outdated, and they aren't updated for new products or channels.
- Each unit or store interprets the brand in its own way.
Marq notes that static guideline documents begin to drift away from day-to-day reality within about six months if no one is responsible for updating them.
At that point, the brand isn't weakened by a lack of touchpoints. It's weakened because those very touchpoints are pulling in different directions.
Start with less, but right
A brand does not need to be everywhere right away. It needs to show up the right way in the places where it already is.
For a business in its building stage, the most effective approach is to choose two or three core recognition signals and keep them strictly consistent across every existing touchpoint.
Not because consistency looks good. But because consistency is the mechanism that helps the human brain remember.
Every time the right signal appears, it adds to the brand's assets. Every time the wrong signal appears, it subtracts.
A brand's biggest enemy is not a competitor. It is drift from within, caused by thousands of small decisions made by people who were never taught how the brand's logic works.
Marty Neumeier, Zag
You don't need to spend more budget to build stronger memory. You need to make sure everything you already spend adds up in the same place.
References
Byron Sharp, How Brands Grow (Oxford University Press, 2010). Jenni Romaniuk & Byron Sharp, How Brands Grow Part 2 (Oxford University Press, 2016). Marty Neumeier, The Brand Gap (New Riders, 2003). Lucidpress/Marq & Demand Metric, The State of Brand Consistency (2016, 2019). McKinsey & Company, The Business Value of Design (2018). Lindgaard et al., Attention web designers: You have 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression, Behaviour & Information Technology (2006).