Specificity is a powerful tool that hides in plain sight
Strategist Katie Ewer makes the case for why advertisers should be inviting their audience to find the universal in the specific, not the other way around.
In the eye of the storm around the recent Burberry rebrand is the tradeoff between audience appeal and brand equity. When a brand pursues appeal to its broadest possible point, brand distinctiveness is often the first casualty. In its quest for universality, Burberry sacrificed the equities that gave it originality, quirk and specificity.
Specificity is a powerful tool that hides in plain sight: obvious yet overlooked. Specificity makes things memorable, and since brand building is about creating and controlling memories, specificity a vital concept for brand design.
Let’s consider the spirits category. A category in which – unlike luxury goods – provenance and heritage are increasingly irrelevant. Some of the most successful new launches in recent years – Kraken rum, Hendrick’s gin and Hibiki whisky to name a few – all share the same mastery of specificity. Kraken’s big inky squid, the eccentric Victoriana of Hendricks and the squat yet elegant faceted glass bottle of Hibiki.
