Why distinctive brand assets must evolve for the AI era

Brands are no longer fighting for share of voice. They are fighting for nanoseconds of attention.

Byron Sharp's Distinctive Brand Assets, the colours, taglines, shapes and typography that create mental shortcuts for consumers, have been foundational to how marketers think about brand building since How Brands Grow was published in 2011. The thinking remains sound. DBAs act as memory structures. They help consumers recall a brand in the moment of decision. They are the shortcuts that survive when attention is fleeting.

But the landscape the theory was built for is gone. Digital media has fragmented. Algorithms shape what gets seen. AI tools are flooding every channel with high-volume, low-cost content. Brand recognition has become a multisensory challenge. The asset toolkit needs to reflect that.

The expanded DBA framework

Four additions deserve to sit alongside the original model: typography, photographic style, illustrative style, and sonic branding. These are not aesthetic choices. They are essential anchors for identity in a content-first world.

Consider Spotify. Its custom typeface, Spotify Circular, is a silent but powerful brand signal. Used across its UI, its advertising, and its merchandise, it is recognisable even without the logo. The typography is doing the work of a DBA. It creates mental availability. It confirms identity. It is fast, familiar, and fluently expressed across every surface the brand touches.

Oatly builds salience differently. A pastel-toned illustrative style, paired with a distinctive tone of voice that feels native to social media rather than imposed on it. These elements function exactly like Sharp's original DBAs. They are the shortcuts. They are what the audience recognises before they read a word of copy.

And then there is sonic branding. Netflix's "tudum" is an earworm. TikTok's notification chime is recognisable in a crowded room. In voice-first, visual-absent environments like podcasts and smart speakers, audio branding is no longer optional for brands operating in those channels. It is the identity.

Not every brand needs to invest in every one of these assets. A wine brand does not need a sonic logo. A SaaS platform may not need a distinctive illustrative style. The point is not to add complexity for its own sake. It is to recognise that the DBAs that matter most depend on where your brand shows up, and that the places brands show up in 2026 are radically different from the places brands showed up in 2011.

The paradox of returning to foundations

The paradox is clear. To move forward into the AI era, brands have to return to foundational brand-building principles. Not abandon them. Update them for a noisier, faster and more fragmented reality.

Distinctiveness still matters. Mental availability still matters. Cultural relevance still matters. But these principles now have to flex across motion, voice, AI-generated visuals, and global contexts. The test is no longer whether your logo is recognisable on a billboard. It is whether the totality of your brand's sensory identity can be recognised in a three-second scroll, an audio-only environment, a culturally specific market, or a feed populated with content that could have been generated by anyone.

Doing that well requires intelligent bravery. The art of making bold, calculated brand decisions grounded in insight, experience and intuition. It is knowing when to push boundaries and when to hold the line. It is the art of creating brands that stand out because they stand for something.

What brand teams should actually do

To prepare for the AI era, brand teams should start building the next generation of DBAs now.

Codify more than the colour palette and the logo. Consider sonic identities, even if you conclude you do not need one. Audit your photographic and illustrative styles. Invest in a custom typeface if the brand justifies it. Most importantly, ensure that these assets work together as a cohesive, culturally resonant system.

Brands build memory through consistency. They build meaning through context. The most successful brands of the next decade will do both. They will anchor identity in distinctive assets while flexing expression to meet the moment, the culture, and the medium.

In an era where AI can generate anything, true creative and strategic distinctiveness will be the most important asset of all.

Rowena Curlewis, Denomination's CEO and co-founder, wrote this essay as part of Ad Age's Future of Advertising 2030 series.