Brand Salience - Knowledge Pills

Brand Salience: Objective

The objective of this pill is to build an understanding of Brand Salience in Marketing and why it matters. At first, we focus on the notion of saliency in cognitive sciences, assessing the effects of Salience bias (also known as perceptual salience), the cognitive bias that predisposes individuals to focus on prominent items or emotionally striking ones while ignoring unremarkable ones.

Then, we look at the impact on long-term and short-term memories and the benefits for brands in terms of recognition and consideration. We then finalize the 10 min pill with levers and examples for building salient brands.

Brand Salience: Examples

It is difficult to assess the saliency of a brand from the outside in. However, there are clear examples of strong brands that are salient. All of those brands become a proxy for their category. For example, Google is a brand and a service, and “to google” has become a synonym for conducting a web search. Other examples of saliency in Marketing are Apple, Netflix, Coca-Cola, Dove, and Ben & Jerry’s.

Pill Structure

1. Saliency: Definitions and Examples,
2. Salience in Marketing: Grabbing attention vs. Memory
3. Building Salience: Levers and Examples

Why now?

Typically, strong brands have higher salience, whereas weak brands have little or none. Without brand salience, people would find it difficult to choose your brand throughout their micro-moments or when they need to make a purchasing decision.