Brand assets are the visual and verbal elements that make up a company’s brand identity. These can include a company’s logo, color scheme, typography, imagery, and messaging. To make brand assets distinctive and stand out in the market, companies can focus on creating a unique and consistent visual identity that accurately reflects their brand values and differentiates them from competitors.

Why is Standing Out Important?

This matters to businesses because it can help a company increase its visibility, differentiate itself from competitors, enhance its reputation, capture a larger share of the market, and increase profitability. Standing out also comes with its advantages including:

Increased Visibility: By standing out, a company is more likely to be noticed by potential customers, which can lead to increased brand awareness and more opportunities for sales.

Differentiation: By standing out, a company is better able to differentiate itself from competitors and communicate its unique value proposition. This can make it easier for customers to understand why they should choose a particular company over others in the market.

Enhanced Reputation: When a company stands out in the market, it can enhance its reputation and be perceived as a leader in its industry. This can lead to increased trust and credibility among potential customers.

Increased Market Share: By standing out and differentiating itself from competitors, a company may be able to capture a larger share of the market.

Increased Profitability: When a company is able to stand out in the market and differentiate itself, it may be able to charge premium prices for its products or services, which can lead to increased profitability.

How to Make Distinctive Brand Assets

There are several simple ways that a company can make its brand more distinctive:

Develop a Unique Visual Identity

Develop a unique logo, color scheme, typography, and imagery that accurately reflects the company’s brand values and differentiates it from competitors. This can help ensure that all brand assets are consistently communicated and reinforce the company’s overall brand identity.

Develop a Consistent Brand Voice

Develop a consistent and cohesive brand voice that aligns with the company’s overall brand strategy and messaging. This can help ensure that all brand assets are working together to effectively communicate the company’s brand proposition and differentiators in the market.

Use Storytelling in Branding

Use storytelling to bring your brand to life and create an emotional connection with your audience. This can help create an emotional bond with customers and increase brand loyalty.

Be Authentic

Be authentic and true to your brand values and mission. This can help build trust and credibility with customers, and make your brand more distinctive.

Focus On Customer Experience

Creating a great customer experience is a key way to make your brand stand out. By providing excellent customer service, you can differentiate your brand from competitors and create a positive association with your brand in the minds of your customers.

Leverage Social Media

Leverage social media to connect with customers and create buzz around your brand. This can help increase brand awareness and make your brand more distinctive.

Create a Strong Brand Promise

Create a strong brand promise that clearly communicates the unique value that your brand offers to customers. This can help differentiate your brand from competitors and create a clear and compelling reason for customers to choose your brand over others.

Leverage Brand Ambassadors

Find influencers, customers or employees that are passionate about your brand and align with your brand values and mission, and leverage them as brand ambassadors. This can help increase brand awareness, credibility and loyalty.

By implementing these strategies, a company can make its brand more distinctive and stand out in the market. It’s important to note that making a brand more distinctive is not a one-time effort, it’s a continuous process of testing, refining, and adapting to the market changes and customer needs.

Types of Brand Assets

There are several types of brand assets that a company can create for its business:

Logos: A logo is a visual symbol that represents a company and its brand. Logos can be simple or complex, and should be designed to be easily recognizable and memorable.

Color Palette: A color palette is a set of colors that are used consistently across all brand assets. These colors should be chosen to reflect the company’s brand values and to differentiate the company from competitors.

Typography: Typography refers to the style and formatting of text used in brand assets. This can include the choice of font, font size, and formatting options such as bold, italic, and underline.

Imagery: Imagery includes any visual elements used in brand assets such as photographs, illustrations, and graphics. These should be chosen to reflect the company’s brand values and to differentiate the company from competitors.

Brand Guidelines: Brand guidelines are a set of rules that dictate how brand assets should be used and applied. This can include guidelines for color usage, typography, imagery, and other elements.

Brand Messaging: Brand messaging includes the verbal elements of a brand, such as the tagline, mission statement, and key messaging. These should be developed to reflect the company’s brand values and to differentiate the company from competitors.

Brand Story: A brand story is a narrative that explains the company’s history, mission, values, and unique selling points. It’s a way to connect emotionally with the target audience and create an emotional bond.

Video and Audio Assets: Video and audio assets can be used for advertisement, explainer videos, podcast, brand videos, etc. These assets are increasingly important to connect with customers on different platforms and channels.

Online Assets: Online assets include the company’s website, social media profiles, and any other digital assets that are used to represent the brand online. These should be designed to reflect the company’s brand values and to differentiate the company from competitors.

Merchandising: Merchandising includes any physical items that represent the company’s brand, such as clothing, bags, pens, and other promotional items. These items should be designed to reflect the company’s brand values and to differentiate the company from competitors.

By creating a variety of brand assets, a company can ensure that its brand is consistently represented across all touchpoints and channels. It’s important to keep in mind that creating and managing brand assets can be a complex task, so it’s essential to have a clear strategy, guidelines and a team or agency to help with the process.

Leveraging Brand Assets

Develop A Consistent and Cohesive Brand Identity

This involves creating a consistent visual identity across all brand assets, including the logo, color palette, typography, and imagery. This can help ensure that all brand assets are consistently communicated and reinforce the company’s overall brand identity.

Align Brand Assets with The Company’s Overall Brand Strategy And Messaging

This involves ensuring that all brand assets are aligned with the company’s overall brand strategy and messaging. This can help ensure that all brand assets are working together to effectively communicate the company’s brand proposition and differentiators in the market.

Use Brand Assets Consistently Across All Touchpoints

This involves using the brand assets consistently across all touchpoints, including the company’s website, social media profiles, advertising, packaging, and promotional materials. This can help ensure that the company’s brand is consistently represented and easily recognizable to customers.

Measure And Analyze the Performance of Brand Assets

This involves regularly measuring and analyzing the performance of brand assets to understand which ones are most effective in reaching and resonating with target customers. This will allow you to adapt and optimize the brand assets for better performance.

Continuously Update and Refresh Brand Assets

Continuously update and refresh brand assets to keep them relevant and aligned with the company’s overall brand strategy and messaging. This can help ensure that the brand assets continue to be effective in differentiating the company in the market.

Use Brand Assets to Create A Strong Customer Experience

Use brand assets to create a strong customer experience, by leveraging them in customer service, customer interactions, and customer engagement.

Examples of Distinctive Brand Assets

These are just a few examples of famous brands that use brand assets to their advantage. These brands have developed a consistent visual identity across all of their brand assets, which helps to make them easily recognizable and memorable to customers.

They also leverage their brand assets to communicate their brand values and messaging, and create a consistent brand experience across all touchpoints:

Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola is known for its iconic red and white color scheme, its unique cursive script logo, and its use of the “Coke” nickname. These brand assets have become synonymous with the Coca-Cola brand, making it one of the most recognizable and iconic brands in the world.

Nike

Nike is known for its iconic “swoosh” logo, which is a simple and easily recognizable symbol that has become synonymous with the brand. Nike’s advertising campaigns also often feature images of professional athletes, which helps to communicate the brand’s message of “just do it” and the brand’s association with high-performance sports.

Apple

Apple is known for its clean and minimalist design, which is reflected in its brand assets such as its logo, product packaging, and advertising. The company’s products are also known for their sleek and modern design, which is consistent with the company’s brand values of simplicity and innovation.

McDonald’s

McDonald’s is known for its iconic golden arches logo, which is one of the most recognizable symbols in the world. The company also uses a consistent color scheme of red and yellow, which helps to make its brand easily recognizable.

Tiffany & Co

Tiffany & Co is known for its iconic blue box and the brand’s unique shade of blue, which is known as “Tiffany blue”. The company’s advertising often features elegant imagery and the company’s iconic blue box, which helps to communicate the brand’s luxury positioning.

IKEA

IKEA is known for its simple and functional design, which is reflected in its brand assets such as its logo and product packaging. The company’s advertising campaigns often feature images of people using IKEA products in real-life settings, which helps to communicate the brand’s message of affordable and functional design.

In Conclusion

By implementing these strategies, a company can leverage its brand assets to their fullest potential, by creating a consistent and cohesive brand identity, aligning brand assets with the company’s overall brand strategy and messaging, and using brand assets consistently across all touchpoints, continuously updating and refreshing them, and measuring their performance.

If you’re looking for help developing brand assets that help you stand out from the crowd, a design partner like Mad Creative Beanstalk might be your answer. Trusted by 100s of early-stage startups, we’ve delivered quality designs consistently to help growing startups make an impact in their industry.

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