Color becomes an asset only when two conditions are met: customers recognize it even without the logo beside it (high Fame), and no other brand in the industry uses that color in the same way (high Uniqueness). Most brands achieve only one of the two, so their color association stays weak. To measure it properly, cover the logo and check whether customers can still name the brand.
In this article · 7 sections
A color is only an asset when customers recognize the brand by that color alone, without the logo. If you have to cover the color up before people recognize you, the color isn't doing any work yet.
Color associations and color assets
Most brands have a main color. But having a color does not mean owning it.
Owning a color means: that color appears across the brand identity, on the website, on business cards, on packaging.
Owning a color means that when customers see it in any context, they think of your brand right away, not anyone else's.
The gap between these two states is very large. Most brands are in the first state but believe they are in the second.
A distinctive brand asset is any element that customers associate consistently and uniquely with one brand, not with the whole industry.
Jenni Romaniuk, Building Distinctive Brand Assets (2018)
Two measures: Fame and Uniqueness
Jenni Romaniuk at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute proposes a way to measure distinctive brand assets along two axes.
Fame (how widely known): the share of customers in your target market who associate that color with your brand when a color is mentioned.
Uniqueness: among the people who associate that color with any brand, the percentage who think only of your brand and no one else.
A color becomes a real asset when Fame and Uniqueness are both high at the same time.
The most dangerous zone is the top left corner: the color is widely recognized, but people associate it with an entire industry rather than with one brand.
This is why red in the fast food sector belongs to no one, even though dozens of brands use it.
Why many brands get it wrong
There are three common reasons brands believe they own a color when they actually don't.
First, using a color for too short a time. A color asset needs time to build up through dozens, even hundreds, of repeated exposures.
Second, using color inconsistently. Changing the tone for every campaign, every season, every designer wipes out the associations you've already built.
Third, choosing a color too close to the industry's. When your color is nearly the same as that of three competitors, customers can't tell you apart. Uniqueness is close to zero.
Quick check: where your color stands
You don't need formal research to get a first estimate. These three questions help you assess it yourself:
- Cover the logo and leave only the color: would loyal customers still name the brand correctly?
- Look at two to three direct competitors: does anyone use a similar color?
- Looking back over three years of published content: is the color consistent, or does each place use a different tone?
If your answer to the first question is "not sure" and to the second is "a few look similar", then your color sits in the low Fame, low Uniqueness zone.
This is a starting point, not a verdict. You can only decide the next step once you know where you stand.
What it takes for color to build into an asset
Romaniuk and Sharp show that distinctive brand assets are formed through three sufficient conditions.
Different enough to tell apart. Your color must stand apart from the common colors in your industry. It doesn't need to be one nobody has ever used, but it must be far enough away that customers don't confuse you with others.
Repeated enough to be remembered. The same color, the same tone, the same way of using it, repeated across many touchpoints over a long period.
A visual impression forms in 50 milliseconds, but lasting memory takes many repetitions.
Tied to the brand, not just the industry. The color needs to appear alongside the name, logo, and product often enough for people's minds to link it with a specific brand, not with the whole product category.
Tiffany Blue is a frequently cited example: a distinctive turquoise tied to its gift box for over 150 years, in an industry where no competitor chose the same shade.
Signature colors and the color-change trap
Once a brand has built high Fame for a color, changing that color means throwing the asset away.
In 2009, Tropicana changed its entire identity. Sales reportedly dropped by around 20% within the first few weeks, forcing the company to return to its old design.
This figure is widely cited, but it comes from an internal report, not independent research.
The lesson is not that you should never change your color. The lesson is: before you change it, take stock of how much Fame the old color is carrying.
If Fame is high, shift gradually, and slowly enough for customers to move their association along with you.
Conversely, if your current color sits at low Fame and low Uniqueness, changing it is actually much less risky than many people think. There is not much to lose.
From color to identity system
Color does not work alone. It is one part of a system made up of typography, imagery, layout and word choice.
When all of these parts are consistent and repeated together, each element reinforces the others. Customers recognize the brand faster and with more certainty, even when they see only a fragment.
When the system is inconsistent, even a beautiful color accumulates nothing. Every appearance is a fresh start.
This is why Sinh Vũ doesn't design a color in isolation but designs the whole system: so the color has room to work, not just room to appear.
References
Jenni Romaniuk & Byron Sharp, How Brands Grow Part 2 (2016). Jenni Romaniuk, Building Distinctive Brand Assets (2018). Byron Sharp, How Brands Grow (2010). Kantar Millward Brown, BrandZ. Marty Neumeier, The Brand Gap (2003).