Here’s a test for every piece of content you publish. Could someone lift it — word for word, no edits — and drop it on a competitor’s website, and nothing would look out of place?
If the answer is yes, that piece should never have gone up. Doesn’t matter how many sessions it pulled. Doesn’t matter how many likes it got.
Hi, I’m Jeff Payne. You’re listening to The Jeff Payne Show, Episode #28: Building Brand Distinctiveness Beyond Visibility
Search right now is doing something strange — it’s getting more crowded and more anonymous at the same time. AI Overviews and AI Mode blend everything into a single answer, so marketers are fighting harder than ever to win a citation, hoping it turns into a click. Pew Research found that the odds of clicking on an informational search with an AI summary present are under 1%.
So we go chase clicks somewhere else — Discover, News, social — and in the chase, we miss the actual point.
The point was never the click. The point was: does the person read this and walk away with a feeling that’s attached to your name? In most cases, they don’t — because they never noticed whose content it was in the first place.
Here’s why that keeps happening. We assume the logo in the header is doing the job. It’s technically there — eye-tracking studies confirm people do glance at it on page load. But a peripheral glance isn’t brand recall. A Nielsen Norman Group study found that even with best-practice header design, 61% of users couldn’t recall the brand after seeing it — logo included. On its own, the logo is not carrying the weight we think it is.
Strip the logo from three well-known fitness brands’ blog content, and most people can’t tell you which brand is which. That’s not because the writing is bad. It’s because it’s replaceable — it could belong to anyone in the category, which means it builds the category, not the brand behind it.
This is the other half of the Two Currencies framework I spoke about in Episode 19.
Citations get you counted.
But distinctiveness is what gets you remembered — and remembered is the only currency that compounds.
The research on this is specific: System1’s data on distinctive brand assets shows that a logo alone gives you a baseline chance of being recognized. Characters and audio cues more than double it. Most brands have neither. But every brand has color, shape, tone, and structure — and those are the levers actually in your control.
This is where deliberate design pays off. Take a dental implant education platform we are building for Burbank Dental Lab— it’s an interactive 3D guide with an embedded AI assistant, replacing the static PDF. You cannot lift that page and drop it onto a competitor’s site. The execution itself is the brand asset. That’s citation-ready structure and distinctiveness working together — not just accurate information, but information delivered in a form only that brand could have made.
Compare that to a cautionary example from the research behind this episode: a company’s branded search clicks quietly dropped for weeks — same impressions, same ranking position — until someone found the cause. A developer had removed the favicon. No distinctive mark in the browser tab, no recognition, no click. The content hadn’t changed. The identity had gone missing.
Here’s the actual audit: it happens at two levels.
First, run the steal test on your last five pieces of content. If a competitor could publish it under their own name and nothing would read as out of place, it needs a rebuild — not more distribution.
Second, check the identity layer most teams never look at: Is your site name the official brand name in search results? Does your Knowledge Graph entity match? Is your favicon current? Does your Organization’s schema carry a logo in both square and horizontal formats? Are your Open Graph images actually branded, not just stock photos with text on them?
None of that is glamorous work. All of it is the difference between a click that goes nowhere and a click that starts building recognition.
Showmanship gets you seen. Distinctiveness is what makes seeing you count. If your content could be anyone’s, it’s building the category — and someone else is going to cash that check.
Thank you so much for listening. I look forward to seeing you next time.
Why visibility without distinctiveness just builds someone else’s category.
Here’s a test for every piece of content you publish. Could someone lift it — word for word, no edits — and drop it on a competitor’s website, and nothing would look out of place?
If the answer is yes, that piece should never have gone up. Doesn’t matter how many sessions it pulled. Doesn’t matter how many likes it got.
Brands he made up out of thin air still made the recommendation list.
SEARCH IS GETTING CROWDED AND ANONYMOUS AT THE SAME TIME
AI Overviews and AI Mode blend everything into a single answer, so marketers are fighting harder than ever to win a citation, hoping it turns into a click. Pew Research found that the odds of that click, on an informational search with an AI summary present, are under 1%.
So we go chase clicks somewhere else — Discover, News, social — and in the chase, we miss the actual point.
The point was never the click. The point was: does the person read this and walk away with a feeling that’s attached to your name? In most cases, they don’t — because they never noticed whose content it was in the first place.
The LOGO ISN’T DOING WHAT YOU THINK IT’S DOING
We assume the logo in the header is carrying the weight. It’s technically there — eye-tracking studies confirm people do glance at it on page load. But a peripheral glance isn’t brand recall. A Nielsen Norman Group study found that even with best-practice header design, 61% of users couldn’t recall the brand after seeing it — logo included.
Strip the logo from three well-known fitness brands’ blog content, and most people can’t tell you which brand is which. That’s not because the writing is bad. It’s because it’s replaceable — it could belong to anyone in the category, which means it builds the category, not the brand behind it.
“The best brands don’t rely on a single branding moment. They use additional non-name elements, known as distinctive brand assets, that can act as a substitute for the brand name.
Logos, taglines, colors, characters, symbols, styles, sounds, packaging (as seen in product photos). All of these can become shorthand that supports quick brand recognition.”
Jes Scholz – SEO Brief
Citations get you counted. Distinctiveness is what gets you remembered — and remembered is the only currency that compounds.
This is the other half of the Two Currencies framework. The research on distinctive brand assets is specific: System1’s data shows that a logo alone gives you a baseline chance of being recognized. Characters and audio cues more than double it.
Most brands have neither. But every brand has color, shape, tone, and structure — and those are the levers actually in your control.
It could belong to anyone in the category — which means it builds the category, not the brand.
Text carries intent. A photo of a coffee machine doesn’t tell you why you like it.
WHAT DISTINCTIVENESS LOOKS LIKE IN PRACTICE
Take a dental implant education platform we are currently building for Burbank Dental Lab — an interactive 3D guide with an embedded AI assistant, replacing the boring static PDF. You cannot lift that page and drop it onto a competitor’s site. The execution itself is the brand asset. That’s citation-ready structure and distinctiveness working together — not just accurate information, but information delivered in a form only that brand could have made.
Compare that to a cautionary example from the research behind this episode: a company’s branded search clicks quietly dropped for weeks — same impressions, same ranking position — until someone found the cause. A developer had removed the favicon. No distinctive mark in the browser tab, no recognition, no click. The content hadn’t changed. The identity had gone missing.
The execution itself is the brand asset.
RUN THIS AUDIT ON TWO LEVELS
First, run the steal test on your last five pieces of content. If a competitor could publish it under their own name and nothing would read as out of place, it needs a rebuild — not more distribution.
Second, check the identity layer most teams never look at:
None of that is glamorous work. All of it is the difference between a click that goes nowhere and a click that starts building recognition.
The difference between a click that goes nowhere and a click that starts building recognition.
It could belong to anyone in the category — which means it builds the category, not the brand.
showmanship vs. Distinctiveness
Showmanship gets you seen. Distinctiveness is what makes seeing you count. If your content could be anyone’s, it’s building the category — and someone else is going to cash that check.
Distinctiveness is what gets you remembered — and remembered is the only currency that compounds.
This episode draws on Jes Scholz’s essay “The Brief about Distinctiveness,” published on Substack, as well as research from Pew Research Center, Nielsen Norman Group, and System1. Read the full piece at seobrief.substack.com.
COMPLETE THE FORM TO
BOOK A STRATEGY CALL
"*" indicates required fields
CHAPTERS:
COMPLETE THE FORM TO
BOOK A STRATEGY CALL
"*" indicates required fields
Subscribe and Share – WE APPRECIATE YOUR SUPPORT
