Standing Out > Blending In

Beyonce didn’t get famous for blending in. She left Destiny’s Child and went solo, earning her star power by creating a personal brand that unequivocally represented her, and could not be replicated. Not to mention her masterful music and award-winning albums… 

When it’s our human instinct to blend in, standing out takes courage. But it’s necessary to achieve greatness. To be famous, or well-known, you have to be distinct because distinctiveness impacts memory: we’re more likely to remember something when it strays from conventions.

This concept is more than just anecdotal; it’s a proven psychological phenomenon known as the Von Restorff effect, or the "isolation effect." German psychiatrist Hedwig von Restorff identified this effect in her 1933 study, where she discovered that participants were more likely to remember a distinctive item when it was presented alongside categorically similar items. The Von Restorff effect illustrates that when an element contrasts with others, it causes the brain to pay more attention, enhancing its memorability. 

The Von Restorff effect applies to marketing as well because marketers are in the memory business. If their brand isn’t remembered, then the product or service they market won’t be purchased.

Unfortunately, distinctiveness is rare in B2B marketing. Most B2B marketers are drowning in a sea of sameness because their brands all look and sound the same. Their ads, their websites, and even their products look similar. This may be because of risk averse professionals ridden with fear of failure, or maybe it’s because we’ve held onto the misconception that marketing to businesses needs to be all “business.” Regardless of the reason, B2B marketers more often blend in vs. stand out. Take the cloud category for example.

Color Is Commonly Misattributed To Your Bigger Competitor

Let’s look at 5 brands in the cloud category: IBM, Dell, Microsoft Azure, Digital Ocean and Qumulo. In a logo-blind color test, it’s nearly impossible to distinguish one brand from another. Try it for yourself:

Did you match each cloud brand correctly? If so, congratulations, you’re among the 5.75% of participants with correct attribution. 15.3% of participants misattributed these colors in the cloud category, and the rest recognized the color but couldn’t attribute it at all.

The risk of misattribution is significant because your ad will most likely be misattributed to the biggest players in the category. In fact, in a proprietary 2022 Distinctive Brand Asset study we conducted with Distinctive BAT, we found that assets are misattributed to Microsoft nearly twice as often as any other brand and 20x more than smaller brands in the category.

In the cloud category, only 5% of the audience associates Dell's shade of blue with the brand, while 10% mistake it for Microsoft. The results are worse for Dell's ads overall—only 2% correctly link them to Dell, while 11% think they’re from Microsoft, 4% from Amazon, and 3% from IBM.

Digital Ocean fared even worse: 0% recognized their shade of blue, and only 2% correctly attributed their ads. Unsurprisingly, both their color and ads were often mistaken for those of larger competitors. Without distinctiveness, your ad dollars are not only being wasted, but driving a mental advantage for your biggest competitors.

To belabor this point with an on “theme” analogy, consider this: why are life jackets often red or orange? Because they need to stand out against the blue ocean to be seen. To stay afloat in a crowded sea of sameness, your brand needs to be distinct. And the way you build distinctiveness is using a broad asset palette that extends beyond just color.

To Stay Afloat, Use A Broad Asset Palette

Investing in a broad palette of Distinct Brand Assets is the key to earning a competitive advantage. You need to look as different from your competitors as possible, because remember: ads that look like your competitor are ads for your competitor.

Here are a few distinctive asset types we recommend investing in: 

• Jingles - Jingles are rare in B2B, making them a big whitespace opportunity. In our analysis of distinctive assets within the Business Insurance category we found catchy jingles such as Farmer’s Insurance (We are farmers), and Liberty Mutual (liberty, liberty, liberty) perform strongly in recognition and correct brand attribution. It’s worth noting that these jingles were made famous by the B2C parent brands, but would have great potential if leveraged more effectively for the B2B brands as well. Our Better Bolder Branding research with MediaScience shows that neurometric intensity spikes among professionals when they view ads with sound, indicating that sound is a powerful attention tool that is not yet being leveraged for distinctive branding.
  
  
• Icons - When prioritized and used consistently across touchpoints, icons and brand elements can be effective brand assets. The AWS smile and Google Cloud’s cloud icon are great examples:
  

• Characters - Characters are overlooked in B2B advertising, yet their impact can be profound. Industry research consistently shows that ads featuring characters are 6x more likely to capture attention; but only 1% of B2B ads use them (Lemon, Orlando Wood). Salesforce's Astro character illustrates this power: comparing campaign creatives with and without Astro, the version with Astro achieved a 6% point increase in Brand Attribution, which is a 40% increase relative to the base. This effectively boosts the value of the same advertising budget by 40%!
  
  

Characters Come In Many Forms: Take Advantage Of The Most Overlooked Asset!

Many B2B marketers shy away from using brand characters for fear that their ads won’t look “professional enough” to market to businesses. We couldn’t disagree more. But if you subscribe to this school of thought, fear not, we have an alternative recommendation. Characters don’t have to look like your favorite childhood cartoon; they come in many effective forms. Consider these alternatives when choosing your brand character: 

• Executives & Employees - Executives and employees are a great alternative to animated brand characters. They infuse emotion and storytelling into your ads while representing your brand voice and values. Progressive famously uses Flo, a fictional employee in this case, to humanize their brand. Try using thought leader ads to amplify your executive’s and employee’s voices.
  
  
• Celebrities - Ads with celebrities are 2.8x more likely to perform high on branded attention, according to our proprietary research with Distinctive BAT. While useful, we recommend proceeding with caution. While celebrities can enhance ad visibility and recall, their brand often overshadows the host brand. Our analysis in the Business Insurance category revealed that brands using famous actors or athletes were rarely recognized unless the partnership was exclusive and long-term. In contrast, custom brand characters or spokespeople performed much better.
  
  
• Influencers - Influencers follow a similar pattern: their brand can overshadow yours if not used strategically. Choose the same influencer year after year to increase recall.
  

Whichever character you choose to represent your brand, ensure it appears consistently across all touchpoints: organic social, digital ads, out-of-home ads, and your website. Many brands underutilize their characters, often neglecting to showcase them prominently on their homepage, for example. Don’t miss this opportunity—make your character a central feature.

Stand Out In The Sea of Sameness

Our final recommendation as you embark on this journey is to prioritize and start small. You should prioritize the assets that have the most potential to drive brand attribution. Use this chart to help:

And if you’re starting from scratch, begin with just one or two key assets. As Jenni Romaniuk from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute advises, "One usable asset is better than ten investable ones.” Focus on the usable assets in the short term before expanding to other assets.

We’re here to help you identify the right branding and creative strategy to stand out from the sea of sameness in B2B. Ask your LinkedIn representative for more information about our B2B Edge program and other Customer Science offerings.