SINGAPORE: Well-recognised brands such as McDonald’s and Samsung use design to boost their brand imprint to prompt maximum saliency and recognition, according to new BrandZ research from Kantar Millward Brown.

“It is more important than ever for brands to stand out from the crowd and maximise their salience and recallability when consumers are prompted by a relevant need,” said Martin Guerrieria, Global BrandZ Research Director at Kantar Millward Brown, in a recent webinar.

According to Guerrieria, building strong brand imprints boils down to acing the ‘three Cs’ of clarity, consistency and communication, particularly with regard to design elements including colours, shapes and logos associated with the brand. (For more details, read WARC’s report: How iconic brands use design for maximum consumer recognition.)

Brands with a strong imprint are 52% more salient compared to brands with a weak imprint, BrandZ’s research indicates. “Critically, this increased salience contributes to stronger equity from those brands,” Guerrieria said. “We see 76% higher power scores for brands with strong brand imprints.”

Done well, the result is that consumers with a relevant need who encounter these assets again are able to then get a salience boost which can be influential on their purchase decisions. The assets establish a positive feedback loop for the marketing and experience of the brand.

Brands within the FMCG categories – fast food and soft drinks – tend to have stronger imprints than those in slow moving categories such as cars, technology and banking.

“This points to the need to establish a strong imprint in the FMCG category in order to compete and gain an advantage, but also illustrates an opportunity to gain an advantage in categories where brand imprint tends to be weaker,” Guerrieria explained.

Sourced from WARC