Learning style, losing position

There is a trap that many brands fall into with completely good intentions. They study successful brands in the industry, learn how to use minimalist colors, learn how to arrange clean typography, learn how to photograph products in an editorial style. The result: a brand identity that looks very professional. But after a year, customers still do not remember them. Or worse, they confuse them with the brand they learned from.

Two things that look alike but are completely different

A distinctive asset is a visual, auditory, or verbal element that helps customers recognize the brand without needing to see its name. For example: the purple of Milka, the shape of a Coca-Cola bottle, the opening music of Netflix. These elements can be learned technically. You can choose a signature color, design a recurring shape, or establish a consistent photography style.

Positioning, according to Ries and Trout, is the space that a brand occupies in the customer's mind within a specific category. It is not the space you want to occupy. It is the space that customers actually place you in when they need to solve a specific problem. And that space cannot be learned. It must be built slowly, through consistent behavior and consistent messaging over time.

When these two elements do not align, you have a visually appealing system that lacks strategic depth.

The brain operates on the principle of who comes first

Research from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, led by Jenni Romaniuk, shows that distinctive assets are measured in two dimensions. One is Fame, which refers to the level of popularity of that asset among the target customer group. The other is Uniqueness, which refers to how closely that asset is associated with your brand and not anyone else's. An asset with high Fame but low Uniqueness, such as navy blue in the finance sector, is almost useless because it does not distinguish you from anyone else.

But the deeper issue lies in the mechanism of memory. When a visual signal has been associated by the human brain with a certain brand, another brand using that same signal will inadvertently trigger associations with the original brand. You are not building memories for yourself. You are reinforcing memories for others.

Positioning is not what you do to a product. Positioning is what you do to the mind of the prospect.

Al Ries & Jack Trout, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind

Why learning from successful brands can be counterproductive

Successful brands are often beautiful because they have had a visual system running long enough for every element within it to accumulate meaning. The beauty you see is not just about design technique. It carries the entire history of interaction between that brand and its customers.

When you adopt that visual style for yourself, you gain the shell but not the core. New customers encountering you will not associate that style with what you want to represent. They will connect it with the brand they are familiar with. And in many cases, the first impression is one of doubt: this brand is trying to look like someone else.

Byron Sharp in How Brands Grow emphasizes that the goal of brand identity is to build mental availability, which means being remembered in the right purchasing situation. Mental availability can only be built on the foundation of unique associations. Customers must connect that signal with you, not anyone else. Learning from others disrupts this mechanism.

Positioning must come first, visual assets follow

The correct process does not start with the question "What do we want our brand to look like?" It begins with the question "What position do we want to occupy in the minds of customers, in what situations, compared to whom?" Once you have the answer to that question, the visual assets have a specific task. They make the positioning more recognizable and memorable, but do not replace the positioning.

Kapferer describes physique, or visual appearance, as one of the six facets of brand identity. It sets the stage. But the other five facets, including personality, culture, relationship, reflection, and self-image, are what create meaning. A brand that invests only in physique while neglecting the other five facets will have a beautiful stage but no performance.

Build visual assets the right way: three essential conditions

First, visual assets must start from a purposeful positioning, not from aesthetic trends or admired styles. The question to ask is: What will this asset remind customers of, in what context?

Second, the asset must be different enough to avoid confusion. This is the Uniqueness condition in Romaniuk's framework. It should not be different just for the sake of being strange, but different because no one in your category is using that signal in that way.

Thirdly, assets must be repeated long enough and consistently enough to accumulate Fame. Ehrenberg-Bass has shown that distinctive assets only create mental availability when repeated consistently. This is not an aesthetic issue, but rather a mechanism of human memory. Changing visual assets too frequently to keep up with trends will erase much of the effort that has been accumulated.

The key point: style can be copied, positioning cannot

This is why two brands can have almost identical visual systems, yet one is remembered while the other is overlooked. The remembered one is not necessarily more beautiful. They are remembered because they came first, repeated often enough, and tied their visual assets to something specific in the minds of customers.

Neumeier writes that a brand is the perception of the customer, not the logo. That perception is not built by imitating others. It is built by deciding who you are, attaching that decision to your own system of signals, and then sticking with it long enough for it to become what customers remember about you when they need this category.

Learning from successful brands is worthwhile. Learn their principles, learn their discipline, learn how they maintain their systems. But do not imitate their style. Their style serves their position, not yours.