You’re driving down the highway and a mile up ahead on the other side of a tree you spot a small section of a sign…. The only thing you see is the side of a bright yellow curve…. You immediately pull over for lunch because you’re 100% sure you just found a McDonald’s restaurant. Did you need more brand input than that?… Nope.

Here’s a similar story (possibly urban legend); It’s told that the design of the curvy Coke bottle was based on the shape of a Cocoa bean but was created so that, even when the bottle is dropped and broken into small pieces, it’s still recognizable as a coke bottle.

Seth Godin calls this Brand DNA …€” while describing his experiences of hearing two notes of a Steely Dan song or seeing just the edge of a New Yorker magazine.

A Business Times article from Malaysia refers to the LACK of this type of brand reenforcement in the world of property developers…. Pillani Pillai, a Singapore brand strategist, says that it’s “typical for a property development firm to launch 5-7 properties at a time with NO consistency in naming”…. Conversely, Kaufman and Broad homes, here in the U.S. does create strong name and style brand consistency. For instance, when buying a home in California there is almost immediate recognition that you’re driving by a K&B development when you see just the entrance sign to the neighborhood or the roof line of one of the houses.
Is your brand strategy powerfully consistent? Do you have brand DNA?… How quick will people pick up on your unique offerings?…

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This entry was posted on Saturday, April 28th, 2007 at 10:22 am and is filed under Brand-tastic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.