Distinctive Brand Assets (DBAs): Definition and Tips

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As a brand, you want to leave an indelible impression. Sure, you do that by having your customer service in order, making a superior product or offering excellent terms and conditions, but Distinctive Brand Assets (DBAs) also help you strengthen your brand identity. We like to tell entrepreneurs how!

What are DBAs?
DBAs are Distinctive Brand Assets. They are those elements or components of your brand identity that set you apart and make you recognizable to customers.

It's not just the external or visual features of your brand, such as your logo and corporate identity. Colors, pay-offs and sounds can also be so striking that consumers immediately know it's your brand. They act as landmarks for your brand along its many touchpoints.

When a consumer enters a buying situation, a number of brands will pass through the brain. Distinctive brand assets can ensure that your brand is among the potential brands. Because of the DBAs, the brand will be activated in the brain. Every brand has brand assets, but when they become "distinctive," it will have a positive impact on brand growth and belize mobile numbers list therefore market share (Romaniuk & Sharp, 2016). DBAs then cause the brand to become more dominant in our brains and have more associations, making us think of the brand faster (top of mind) or our eye falls on it faster. Marketing professor Byron Sharp calls this 'mental availability'. But this is only true when the brand asset is well-known and unique! We walk past brands we don't know well or have no associations with faster. They have not established a position in our brain.

Examples in practice
So we speak of DBAs when it is so obvious that it is about your brand that mentioning your name or showing your logo is already unnecessary. Well-known examples are:

The 'golden arches' as a symbol of McDonald's
Coca-Cola's signature bottle shape
Duracell's indefatigable rabbit
Vodafone's recognizable jingle
The slogan 'Just do it' and Nike's 'swoosh'
Celebrities like George Clooney for Nespresso