Why Product Form Has Become a Brand's Most Valuable Asset
Over the past few years, we've had the opportunity to work on a wide range of brand identity, packaging, and product design projects. Along the way, we've noticed a meaningful shift: the role brands expect products to play is changing—at least from a design perspective.
Products have always been an important brand asset. But today, brands are asking them to do something fundamentally different.
Traditionally, the primary role of product design was to express a brand's identity through form. The goal was to translate a brand's philosophy, personality, and values into a physical object—to create a product that unmistakably belonged to that brand. That remains an essential part of product design, but it is no longer enough.
Today's brands expect product design to go a step further.
A product must still embody the brand, but it also needs to capture attention instantly, become memorable through a single photograph, encourage organic sharing on social media, and spark conversations. Rather than simply representing a brand, products are increasingly expected to help people remember it, talk about it, and ultimately contribute to its growth.
We don't believe this is simply another design trend. It reflects a much broader shift in how brands build competitive advantage.
For decades, a brand's visual differentiation was built primarily through its identity system and packaging design. Packaging, in particular, became one of the most powerful assets a brand could own—an element that made products recognizable and memorable on the shelf.
Today, however, the market is saturated with brands competing for the same attention. As more products enter the market, it becomes increasingly difficult for packaging alone to create meaningful distinction. As a result, many brands are naturally expanding their focus beyond packaging to the product itself.
Unlike packaging, product form requires significantly greater investment, longer development cycles, and far more technical complexity. Once established, it cannot be changed easily. Instead, it accumulates value over time, becoming one of the most enduring assets a brand can own.
We believe the center of gravity in brand competition is gradually shifting toward assets that are inherently more difficult to build.
In the future, a brand's competitive advantage may depend less on how many brand assets it possesses and more on whether those assets can be easily replaced, replicated, or imitated. From this perspective, product form is no longer simply a vehicle for expressing a brand. It has become an asset that shapes first impressions, creates lasting memories, and drives long-term brand growth.
So what kind of product forms should brands create next?
What makes a product more compelling, more memorable, and more likely to be talked about?
We don't believe the answer is simply creating something more unusual or visually distinctive. There are underlying principles behind why certain product forms naturally attract people, stay in their memory, and invite conversation.
That's the topic we'll explore in our next article.
