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The Power of Distinctive Assets
Maximizing brand recognition and emotional engagement in advertising
Effective advertising operates at the intersection of emotional engagement and brand recognition. While evoking strong emotions can drive long-term growth by refreshing and building memory structures, ensuring that a brand's advertising remains distinctive and recognizable is equally crucial.
Failing to balance these aspects can lead to disinterest (i.e., high levels of neutrality when watching an ad) or even misattribution (i.e., an ad works in favor of a competitor).
How can advertisers get it right?
Distinctive Assets Drive Recognition
Picture this: Someone is on the phone with a friend while the TV plays in the background. A car ad comes on. It features quick cuts of the car climbing mountains and driving through rivers with an A-list celebrity at the wheel. The brand is not immediately obvious until the end of the spot when the logo flashes across the screen and a voiceover teases the latest promotion. By the next commercial break, does the viewer remember the brand?
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Unfortunately, entertainment doesn't guarantee distinctiveness. The Super Bowl is evidence of this. Even the most anticipated commercials of the year face the problem of low brand recognition. Despite the high costs and creative efforts invested in these ads, brand recognition often falls below the U.S. average of 79 percent, according to internal System1 data. In fact, Previous System1 research indicates that nearly 20 percent of viewers cannot recall the brand behind a Super Bowl ad, leading to significant budget wastage. This problem underscores the need for advertisers to focus on creating highly distinctive and memorable ads to avoid their marketing dollars benefiting competitors or the broader category.
However, there is evidence that what Byron Sharp, a professor of marketing at the University of South Australia, refers to as "distinctive assets" (e.g., logos, slogans, shapes, and colors that help a brand stand out as memorable) play a crucial role in brand recognition.
Sharp states that distinctive assets contribute to mental salience, helping consumers recognize and recall the brand across various contexts. And the good news is that marketers understand the impact that such assets can have on advertising effectiveness: A recent survey by the brandgym found that 100 percent of senior marketer respondents agree on the importance of these assets in driving brand growth.
If every senior marketer is aligned on the value of distinctive assets, then their adoption rate should be high and their execution should drive results. But a 2023 analysis by JKR and Ipsos of more than 5,000 brand assets reveals that only 15 percent of brand assets are truly distinctive. This gap highlights the need for organizations to create and regularly use assets that unmistakably signal their brand and no one else's. Thankfully, there is a specific type of distinctive asset that excels at balancing both brand recognition and emotional engagement.
The Benefits of Fluent Devices
Advertising effectiveness expert and System1 Chief Innovation Officer Orlando Wood has written extensively about the benefits of what he has coined "fluent devices." In his book Lemon, he shares that there are two types of fluent devices: recurring characters with agency (e.g., Colonel Sanders, M&M's "spokescandies") and consistently used scenarios played out by people in new and different contexts (e.g., Snickers' slogan "You're not you when you're hungry," which manifests in new situations across the campaign).
Fluent devices offer significant benefits. Because they focus on the living and put people and characters at the center of the narrative, they support emotional engagement. Fluent devices trigger an emotional response. They are often associated with humor, helping to evoke intense, positive emotions that support long-term brand-building.
This is why consumers have come to know and love many brand characters. These characters firmly embed the brand into the cultural consciousness, building greater mental availability that comes into play at the time of purchase. Of course, the most effective fluent devices are used across various channels to maximize exposure throughout the funnel. For example, not only will consumers likely recognize the Geico Gecko on TV but they may see him on retail displays. Leveraging fluent devices across media types is a common practice for many brands.
Beyond emotional engagement, fluent devices also enhance "processing fluency," meaning they make it easier for consumers to recognize and recall the brand. Especially when used frequently, fluent devices can work to quickly signal the brand. Thus, many organizations that have invested in fluent devices reveal them within the first few seconds of an ad to make the brand clear to consumers.
The Business Impact of Fluent Devices
Research conducted by Wood for his book underscores the importance of developing and measuring the effectiveness of fluent devices and has also revealed that the use of fluent devices has declined over the past several decades. Despite their potential to support long-term growth, fluent devices, according to Wood, aren't being utilized as frequently as they once were.
Yet as more businesses shift to performance marketing with promotions-based communications across a range of channels — especially social media — fluent devices are more important than ever. This is because they fulfill two main factors that contribute to short-term sales potential. The more people feel, the more they buy, and when they recognize the brand being advertised, they can more easily put those emotions into action.
Fluent devices elicit an emotional reaction and their familiarity enhances fluency, according to Wood. Thus, fluent devices are a win-win for brands aiming to drive sales in the short-term as well as sustained growth over the long term.
Striking the Right Balance with Brand Assets
The strategic use of distinctive assets, especially fluent devices, is crucial for creating memorable and effective advertising. Distinctive assets have the unique ability to strike a balance between emotional engagement and brand recognition. In turn, this helps brands improve the efficiency of their marketing investments and drive short- and long-term growth.
The most effective marketers will be those who invest in developing these elements. With a deeper understanding of the emotions evoked by brand assets and the processing speed associated with them, marketers can confidently and consistently feature these assets across their campaigns to stand out in a crowded marketplace.
System1 is a partner in the ANA Thought Leadership Program.
