The most recognisable brands in the world own a surprisingly small number of assets. The discipline is in knowing which ones to protect – and which to cut.

Brand codes – the visual, verbal, and audio elements that identify a brand and distinguish it from competitors – are not decorative.

Used consistently, they build the memory structures that drive recognition, recall, and growth. Coca-Cola’s red, its contour bottle, its script. McDonald’s golden arches. The Nokia tone. Each one the result of decades of deliberate, disciplined repetition.

The temptation, especially as organisations grow, is to add. New sub-brands, campaign identities, seasonal variants. Each one feels justified in isolation.

Collectively, they dilute.

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The evidence for less

Research from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute is clear: visually cohesive brands are recognised faster and recalled more accurately. Multiple pieces of differing creative actively work against brand building – undermining the memory structures you’re trying to create, rather than reinforcing them.

The implication is counterintuitive for marketing teams under pressure to produce. More activity, more variation, more creative – it feels like progress. But if the assets aren’t consistent, the effort doesn’t compound. It dissipates.

Mark Ritson frames it simply: establish your codes, apply them relentlessly, and only play with them once they’re deeply embedded. In that order. Not before.

The humdrum conundrum

There’s a practical obstacle to all of this: the people closest to a brand tire of it long before the audience does. By the time your team is bored of an asset, it may only just be percolating into your audience’s consciousness.

This is one of the most common and costly mistakes in brand management. Assets get refreshed or abandoned – not because they’ve stopped working, but because someone internally has stopped finding them interesting. It’s the brand that pays the price.

Consistency isn’t the enemy of creativity.

Think of a great symphony – endless variation, infinite expression, built on the repetition of a small number of carefully chosen themes, It’s the recognition of that musical theme that gives the music appeal.

The constraint is what makes the creativity possible.

What it means in practice

The opportunity for most organisations isn’t to create more.

It’s to identify the small number of assets worth owning – and then own them completely. Across every channel, every touchpoint, every piece of communication.

Think harder. Create less. Execute more.

It’s not a retreat from ambition. Far from it. This is where the real brand-building work happens.

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