You don’t. The COVID-19 situation should not change your Distinctive Asset palette building strategy. 

I was asked by someone with a logo with a face shape whether they should create a temporary logo with masks over the people’s faces, to speak to the current challenges everyone is facing.  The answer from a Distinctive Asset building perspective is no. 

Indeed if you are bored in quarantine and flirting with the idea of changing your brand assets, don’t – take up a new hobby instead.  If someone else in the company suggests a change to the asset, ignore them if you can.  If you can’t ignore them, try distracting them with something else to think about (pg 169 in Building Distinctive Brand Assets has suggestions for distraction tactics!). 

Why is this such a bad idea?  The reason is because your brand’s Distinctive Assets can’t benefit from this change. 

Let’s think about it from the perspective of those who have the brand linked to the asset in memory.  Amongst this cohort, our asset building activities are not finished, we still need to keep this link refreshed because without reinforcement, the memory link between the brand and the asset will naturally decay over time (as all memories do).   

If the change is so substantive that it disrupts category buyers’ visual recognition systems, then the brand will fail to be triggered.  This means the asset is failing at its primary job – to act as a branding device. 

If the change is subtle enough to be different, but still trigger the brand, you waste the refreshment opportunity by failing to reinforce the correct mental structures.  So the link between the brand and asset will continue to decay.  This is an opportunity lost.

But rarely do our assets have 100% Fame.  What effect will the change have on those who do not have the link between the brand and the asset established in memory?  Any change means exposure to the asset will build incorrect Distinctive Assets, that have to then be re-taught later.  Again this is a lost opportunity to build the asset.

So lose-lose-lose.

Just like Christmas, Easter, Halloween and any other holiday – your creative can change, your message also might (see the piece of Category Entry Points in the time of COVID 19), but your Distinctive Assets should stay the same!