Make it Unmistakable.
Bunnings is Australia’s most unmistakable brand, according to the findings of The Make it Unmistakable study, a joint initiative led by research firm The Navigators and branding agency Principals.
Building on the Ehrenberg Bass Distinctive Brand Asset framework, the study surveyed 2,500 Australians on 121 assets across 77 brands.
“Building fame remains essential to brand growth. But fame alone is not always enough,” said Principals strategy director Charlie Rose.
“Brands are increasingly seen but not clearly recognised; remembered, but sometimes misattributed.
“Unmistakability is what makes fame work harder. It ensures that when people notice your brand, they recognise it faster, process it more easily and attribute it to the right source.”
Respondents were exposed to a set of brand assets including a mix of asset types such as logos, colours, lexical, sonic and graphical elements.
Respondents were asked if they recognised the asset, then asked which brand it belonged to.
Bunnings rose to the top of the study on the back of its logo.
Stripped of the word ‘Bunnings’, the combination of the red and green colour palette, the blocky, utilitarian typography, and the warehouse shape made it the most recognised and correctly attributed asset in the study.
“When attention is fleeting, brands need assets that work together to create cognitive shortcuts, helping consumers identify them quickly and correctly," said The Navigators founder, Cecile Thornley.
"Even without the word ‘Bunnings’, consumers found the Bunnings logo impossible to mistake.”
Beyond Bunnings, the symbols of banks Westpac and CommBank performed strongly in the study, as did retailers Woolworths and Officeworks.
While individual assets play a major role in making brands unmistakable, Rose said the strongest brands layer distinctive assets to increase attribution.
“Distinctiveness is not built by isolated assets. It is built with connected systems that make brands so effortless to recognise that marketing investment is immediately working harder.
"Assets that work together create a compounding effect. They are consistent, but more importantly, coherent and reinforce a clear, ownable idea.”
At the other end of the spectrum, JetStar’s jumping people was the most frequently misattributed asset, with respondents confusing the image with Toyota.
“Brands that build consistently used asset systems can compound advantage over time; however, brands that rely on broad cues shared within a category, attempt to borrow brand equity from celebrities, or don’t allow time for assets to bed into the memory structures of their audience risk becoming wallpaper or worse, mistaken for another brand," said The Navigators Thornely.
Top 5 Australian Distinctive Brand Assets
- Bunnings block logo
- Westpac W
- Woolworths W/apple
- CommBank diamond
- Officeworks OW symbol
5 Most Misattributed Brand Assets
- JetStar people jumping – confused with Toyota
- Harvey Norman catalogue page
- Industry Super Fund hand symbol
- Anaconda ‘Play more’ tagline
- NIB illustration style of people/customers
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