Brand association is not coincidence, it’s designed

Someone recently messaged telling me they had walked past an op shop window display full of green dresses arranged in a row. “I walked past and thought of you!”

Then the other morning, someone else sent me a message saying they were scrolling through Instagram, saw an emerald green post, and immediately thought of me. They reached out just to connect and mentioned “whenever I see that colour, I think of you.”

I get variations of these messages regularly. People think they’re just being lovely and reaching out to connect, but what they don’t realise is that this moment – this automatic thought of me when they see that colour – is 1,000% intentional because I’ve designed it to happen this way using my brand.

Emerald green is one of my distinctive brand assets, and over the past 3 years, I’ve used it so consistently and repetitively across everything I do, to build a strong automatic association in people’s minds between that colour and me.

When people encounter it out in the world or scrolling through their feeds, they subconsciously and sometimes consciously think of me, and when they think of me, they’ve hopefully had a great experience or know enough about me that they smile, have warm feelings, and they register a strong brand association that “Cass does brand” – Know, Like and Trust.

This keeps me front of mind because I’ve carved out mental availability in their mind, so they think of me, even when I’m not in front of them.

This is the power of brand association at work, and every single time someone sees me connected with that colour, I am strengthening the connection (by creating neural pathways) so that their brain registers the connection between emerald green and me. This has a compounding effect over time until eventually, they can’t see that colour anywhere without thinking of me.

This is what creating mental availability looks like in action, and it’s one of the most valuable assets you can build in your business.

Unfortunately, founders simply choose brand colours they like and think their function is to make their business look pretty.

What they don’t realise is that the whole purpose is to create neural associations in your customers’ minds through repetition, and positioning to lead straight back to you even when you’re not in front of them.

Now it’s your turn

What distinctive assets do you have in your business, and are you using them consistently enough to build automatic associations in your customers’ minds?

When they’re out in the world and see your signature colour, hear your specific phrase, or encounter something that connects to what you do, do they automatically think of you?

And more importantly, have you designed your brand intentionally to create those associations, or are you hoping people will just remember you because you’re good at what you do?

This is one way building your brand makes business feel easier – when you’ve built strong associations, your brand is working for you to stay front of mind even when people aren’t actively looking at your content, and that’s the difference between a brand built by design and a business that’s just beautifully decorated.

P.S. If you’re ready to build a brand that works this strategically for your business, I have 2 spots left for my Brand in a Day retreat on February 19th in Perth. This is where we work through exactly this, defining your distinctive assets and building the system for using them consistently to create automatic associations that keep you front of mind. Investment is $2,200 or payment plan available. Two spots left – reply to this email if you want to know more.

Speak soon