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📝 Context

Topic: Brand & Strategy
For: B2C. Can be tested for B2B
Research date: March 2020
Universities: University of South Australia (Ehrenberg-Bass Institute)

You’re refreshing your barefoot shoe brand to more clearly differentiate yourself from competitors and make it easier for people to remember you.

You decide that a great way to do that is by introducing an eye-catching color that you’ll use consistently across your brand (e.g. ads, website). 

You pick bright red, as you know it’s associated with excitement and high-energy. Now you’re sure people will immediately recognize your brand. 

But when you show it to your friends and family, the first thing you constantly hear is “Oh! That’s the Coca-Cola red”.

Perhaps you didn’t create such a unique brand identity after all. Here’s why, and what to do instead.

P.S.: On a personal note, I’m curious about what you think of our Science Says purple 💜 

As we’ll see, colors - on average - are not a very unique distinctive asset. At the same time, I often get positive feedback that our insights’ illustrations are pretty unique (like the one below under “📈 Recommendation”), and people often mention our purple color. 

Is our combination of purples indeed unique, perhaps because it’s rare in this category - or do you think it’s something else that makes our illustrations feel distinct and unique?

Would love to hear what you think. I read every message!

📈 Recommendation

Make sure your brand elements are unique. Focus on unique mascots (e.g. Ronald McDonald), logos (e.g. the “M” golden arches), and fonts (e.g. Coca-Cola’s font). Yhey have the highest impact in making your brand immediately unique and recognisable.

Avoid relying on color alone, as it is a highly shared brand element and is less helpful for people to recognize your brand. Instead, create unique color combinations (e.g. Cadbury’s purple paired with gold accents) or combine it with unique shapes and patterns to create a more distinct brand look.

People will be more likely to recognise and remember your brand.

Pro tip: Remember that - like most insights we cover - the effect depends greatly on your context. If you operate in a small niche you may not need very sophisticated brand elements or need different ones. For example, if you advertise mainly with audio ads in podcasts, there is little point in having a mascot, as nobody will see it.

🎓 Findings

• Logos, mascots, and fonts are the most effective brand identity elements for creating unique associations.

• Across 61 datasets in 19 countries, a 2-year period of 1,281 brand identity elements with 26,755 people, researchers found that people:

  • Were more likely to uniquely associate mascots or characters with their respective brand (e.g. M&M’s characters or Colonel Sanders), compared to any other brand elements

  • Associated logos (e.g. Nike swoosh) and fonts (e.g. Coca-Cola’s cursive script) with their respective brands, but slightly less effective than mascots 

  • Were 2x more likely to associate characters and logos to the correct brand (vs colors)

  • Associated 82% of color assets to multiple brands (e.g. the very same color combination was associated with two or more brands), making them the least unique brand element

🧠 Why it works

• We process visual elements (e.g. logos, mascots) more easily than text-based elements (e.g. taglines).

• This helps us immediately associate a distinctive brand element (e.g. golden arches) to the brand (e.g. Mcdonald’s).

• Because visual elements are often distinct, we can create unique associations between them and the brands they represent.

• However, colors are often shared between brands and across the same category.

• This makes them less effective at helping us recognise them and create brand associations.

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✋ Limitations

• The study only looked at consumer packaged goods categories (e.g. snacks, detergent). The effect might not be the same for other categories like luxury products and services as people might use other elements to identify those brands.

• Other brand elements influence brand perceptions but weren’t considered in this study. For example, auditory elements like jingles have been shown to play a significant role in brand recall but it’s unclear how distinct they are.

• It’s likely that the effect is similar for small brands, though only bigger brands were analyzed.

👀 Real-life example

Lejan is a barefoot shoe brand developed by doctors, focusing on comfort and style.

❌ Issue: Their value proposition is unique and well communicated, but their brand identity is not very recognizable or unique.

✅ Solution: There are a few things they could try to fix this:

• Leverage the logo shapes and fonts consistently in their branding and across touchpoints. For example, they could use the mirrored “N” as a unique element. They could develop their own font, and avoid using the generic one they currently have.

• Add a foot or shoe element to their logo to make the product immediately recognizable and make people like it more.

• Play around with this element and include smile-like curves to help increase purchase intentions.

🔍 Study type

Market observation (secondary data collected from 61 datasets across 1,281 brand elements and across 13 CPG categories in 19 countries)

📖 Research

Building a unique brand identity: measuring the relative ownership potential of brand identity element types. Journal of Brand Management (March 2020)

🏫 Researchers

• Ella Ward. Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science, University of South Australia.

• Song Yang. Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science, University of South Australia.

• Jenni Romaniuk. Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science, University of South Australia.

• Virginia Beal. Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science, University of South Australia.

Remember: This is a scientific discovery. In the future it will probably be better understood and could even be proven wrong (that’s how science works). It may also not be generalizable to your situation. If it’s a risky change, always test it on a small scale before rolling it out widely.

🎁 Bonus mini-insight

Read the full insight here (for paid Platform members only).

🎓 Insight: How to design your brand to feel safe, or exciting

📈 Recommendation: Use structured designs (e.g. straight lines) to be perceived as effective and reliable. Use unstructured designs (e.g. incomplete shapes) to be perceived as fun and exciting.

People will like your brand more and will be more likely to choose you.

Here is how else Science Says can help your marketing:

• 📈 Join the Science Says Platform to unlock all 300+ insights, real-world case studies, and exclusive playbooks

• 📘 Boost your sales and profits with topic-specific Science-based Playbooks (e.g. Pricing, Ecommerce, SaaS, AI Best Practices)

• 🔬 Get science-based insights for your industry or niche. My team of PhDs and I regularly help leading brands in FMCG, retail, and tech. Find out more.

🎓 It took me, a PhD analyst, and a marketing pro 13 hours to accurately turn this 15-page research paper into this 3min insight. 

If you enjoyed it please share it with a friend, or share it on LinkedIn and tag me (Thomas McKinlay), I’d love to engage and amplify! 

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📝 Context

Topic: Ads | Social Media | Brand & Strategy
For: B2C
Research date: March 2025 
Universities: Dartmouth College, University of Oxford

A 2017 investigation by The Times newspaper found that hundreds of brands, from the supermarket chain Waitrose to Mercedes-Benz, had their ads appearing alongside content by ISIS sympathizers and white supremacists.

In response, large brands like Jaguar, Sandals Resorts and others announced an immediate suspension of their digital advertising until they gained better visibility on where all their programmatic ads were placed.

But does it truly matter to viewers? And how much?

Science says, the impact on customers may be even worse than initially thought.

P.S.: When you’re running your ads online, try to keep a frequency cap of 3 per user for the general public to make sure your ad stays effective and doesn’t annoy people.

📈 Recommendation

Make sure your online ads are not placed alongside content people might consider unsafe or objectionable (e.g. racist or violent content or content about smoking and drugs). If people see your ads next to this content, they will have more negative opinions of your brand, and trust you less.

If your ad does get shown next to unsafe or objectionable content, respond immediately with follow-up messages to highlight your disapproval of the objectionable content to minimize the negative impact.

🎓 Findings

• Online, when people see an ad next to content they think is unsafe or objectionable, they trust the advertising brand less and have more negative opinions of the brand.

• As part of a series of 6 experiments and an analysis of 6.7 million posts on X, researchers found that people had:

  • 18.8% worse opinions of AT&T and trusted the telecom company 17.8% less when their ad on X was placed alongside an anti-semitic post, compared to a benign post about Hanukkah.

  • 18.3% worse opinions of Nissan and Disney when they saw their Youtube ads placed next to content by ex-KKK leader David Duke.

    • People who heard about, but didn’t see the ads, also had 17.7% worse opinions of the brands

• The effect:

  • Reverses when a brand responds to the incident, (vs not issuing a response), with:

    • An immediate response leading to a 18.1% increase in trust for the brand

    • A response a little while after the incident leading to a 13.6% increase in trust

    • A response a week later leading to a 7.2% increase in trust

  • Disappears when the unsafe content fits the brand’s tone (e.g. an edgy brand appearing next to marijuana-related content).

  • Only works for unsafe or objectionable content (e.g. white supremacist content), not general negative content (e.g. discussion of maternal death rates).

🧠 Why it works

• When we see things next to one another, the two become linked in our minds.

• Accordingly, when we see an ad next to objectionable or unsafe content, our concerns with the content lead us to judge a brand appearing alongside it.

• Online, more so than in other mediums, trust plays an especially important role in whether we like a brand or buy from them.

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✋ Limitations

• The research looked at people’s self-reported trust in the brand. It hasn’t been tested whether this also impacted sales or revenues.

• The study focused on certain types of unsafe content (anti-semitism, racism and smoking). It’s unclear if the effect would carry over to other types of content (e.g. fringe politics or conspiracy theories).

• The research looked at reactions to ads on Facebook, Youtube and X. Users on other platforms (e.g. TikTok or Reddit) may respond differently.

👀 Real-life example

In 2017, ads for the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and the Twin Waters Family Resort’s ads on YouTube were unwittingly placed alongside objectionable and unsafe content in Australia.

❌ Issue: Both brands’ ads appeared alongside content for a Russian militant group glorifying extremism.

✅ Solution: Both brands can minimize the chances of this happening and its impact, by:

• Ensuring their ad buys are restricted to Youtube channels vetted and approved by the brand, as compared to (cheaper) general audience and inventory buys.

• Focusing their advertising on channels part of the “Youtube Preferred” and “Google Preferred” whitelist, to minimize chances of objectionable content being included.

• Targeting their programmatic buying to keywords related to their product (e.g. “university”, “higher education” and “bachelors” for UNSW or “vacations” “family trips” and “waterparks” for Twin Waters), instead of targeting audiences regardless of the content.

• Rapidly apologizing for the ad placement and being transparent about the targeting criteria that led to the placement, to highlight it was an inadvertent mistake.

🔍 Study type

Online experiments and data analysis of 6.7 million posts on X.

📖 Research

Brands in unsafe places: effects of brand safety incidents on brand outcomes. Journal of Marketing Research. (June 2025).

🏫 Researchers

• Lauren Grewal. Dartmouth College

• Prasad Vana. University of Oxford

• Andrew Stephen. University of Oxford

Remember: This is a new scientific discovery. In the future it will probably be better understood and could even be proven wrong (that’s how science works). It may also not be generalizable to your situation. If it’s a risky change, always test it on a small scale before rolling it out widely.

🎁 Bonus: Trivia

Check your knowledge from previous insights (for paid Platform members only).

• 📈 Join the Science Says Platform to unlock all 300+ insights, real-world case studies, and exclusive playbooks

• 📘 Boost your sales and profits with topic-specific Science-based Playbooks (e.g. Pricing, Ecommerce, SaaS, AI Best Practices)

• 🔬 Get science-based insights for your industry or niche. My team of PhDs and I regularly help leading brands in FMCG, retail, and tech. Find out more.

🎓 It took me, a PhD analyst, and a marketing pro 11 hours to accurately turn this 52-page research paper into this 3min insight. 

If you enjoyed it please share it with a friend, or share it on LinkedIn and tag me (Thomas McKinlay), I’d love to engage and amplify! 

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