The logo is protected. The rest drifts
A brand's visual identity is a chain of distinctive assets: logo, language, typeface, colour and imagery. We have measured every link for 351 Danish brands, and the chain breaks in the same place almost every time. The logo is treated as sacred. The imagery drifts.
The chain, link by link
We score each distinctive asset from 0 to 10 on how distinctive and consistent its use is across the brand's channels. The ranking of the field is clear at both ends: the logo is at the top (6.3), followed by the verbal assets (5.1), the typeface (5.0) and colour (5.0). At the bottom: imagery, at 4.3. The order is rarely reversed: the picture of the typical Danish brand is a well-fitted logo on top of a visual expression that grows looser the further you get from the logo file.
Nearly one in five brands shows the pattern in its pure form: the logo is in place, while imagery sits below the middle. These are brands that have invested in the mark and forgotten everything the mark sits on.
Why the images lose
The explanation is practical, not ill will. The logo is one file with one owner and clear rules; it rarely changes and is approved centrally. Images, by contrast, are produced all the time, by many hands, for many channels (campaigns, social media, job postings, presentations) and often with no guidelines other than taste. Consistency requires a system, and for most brands the system stops at the logo and the colour code.
But the customer meets the brand the other way round. People see the imagery long before they study the logo: feeds, ads and websites are images with small logos on them, not logos with small images on them. The chain is therefore weakest exactly where exposure is greatest.
It is linked to the half distinctive asset
The article “Your brand owns barely half a distinctive asset” showed that the typical Danish brand owns only just under half a strong distinctive asset. The shape of the chain explains why: when only the logo is looked after, only the logo can become a distinctive asset, and a name-mark alone rarely carries enough recognition. The brands that manage to make a visual style, a typeface or a colour recognisable have in effect doubled their distinctive assets without touching the logo.
What this means for your brand
Give imagery the same discipline the logo has always had: a few rules that everyone producing content can follow: types of subject, light, cropping, what is always included and what never is. Three rules that are followed beat thirty that sit in a manual. And test the chain with the same method as ever: cover the logo on your last ten publications. Can you still tell it is you?
How we measured (method)
The figures are based on 351 brands analysed in brandvju as of October 2026, all measured with the same method; the distinctive assets could be scored for 351 of them. Each distinctive asset (logo, verbal assets, typography, colour, visual style) is scored from 0 to 10 for distinctiveness and consistent use, based on the brand's own publicly available channels; the figures shown are the field's average. Visual style is assessed on the material available, and channels behind a login are not included.