Standing out in 2025 has never been harder, or more important. In every sector, there are brands that look, sound and act the same. Logos merge, mission statements blur into promises of trust, and innovation becomes another tick-box exercise. Yet in industries the world depends on, such as aviation, technology and water infrastructure, differentiation is not decoration. It is a way of thriving.
At Frost, we have seen how these industries often share the same challenge. Behind every aircraft, network or pipeline sits a brand built for reliability, safety and professionalism rather than the things that truly make them unique. But when every player claims to be safe, global and professional, those words stop meaning anything at all. This piece explores what happens when sameness takes over, and why, in the airline industry especially, the pursuit of professionalism can quietly erase the very thing a brand needs most: to be recognised and remembered for the right reasons. The problem lies not only in the visual, but in ensuring a brand’s behaviour is not just authentic but also understood.
How the Pursuit of Professionalism Creates Brand Invisibility
Few fields are as focused on professionalism as the airline industry. Muted colour palettes, minimalist symbols and global alliances dominate the landscape. In the drive to appear seamless, safe and serious, many carriers erase the very cues that once made them distinct, including their history, values and cultural character.
Consider Lufthansa’s 2018 overhaul. The airline removed its iconic yellow tail circle and adopted a deeper blue paired with a white crane in a simplified circle. At the time, Lufthansa’s Head of Brand, Alexander Schlaubitz, explained that the refresh aimed to reflect “digital modernity and timeless elegance” and better suit how the brand appears on screens rather than in print. (Lufthansa Press Release, 2018)
Soon after, LOT Polish Airlines lodged a formal opposition, arguing that Lufthansa’s new tail-fin design created a “likelihood of confusion”, gave Lufthansa an “unfair advantage”, and threatened LOT’s own distinctiveness. (aeroTELEGRAPH / One Mile at a Time)
When competitors use nearly identical cues, the same shade of blue, the same circular bird motif, the same minimal geometry, the risk is not just legal. It is cultural. What once signified national identity and heritage morphs into “just another airline with a blue tail”. In this sameness, brand invisibility takes root and personality disappears, leaving only a corporate uniform. And yes, identity is not the only thing a company is remembered for, but when more and more brands look the same, the risk of confusion and reduced recall increases.
Brands should lead with how they act, how they serve and benefit their audiences. Trust and digital modernity may sit within that, but they are not differentiators; they are baseline expectations. What truly sets a company apart is how its purpose and actions connect to its audience, and how its history has shaped where it stands today. That distinctiveness might come from being the most premium or the most efficient. Either can work if it is genuine and consistent. These qualities should shape a brand, not follow it. When behaviours are lived and understood from the top to the bottom of an organisation, recognition becomes instinctive. The brand becomes synonymous with what it does, not just what it says.
The Seduction of Safety
Across the aviation industry, certain visual codes have become near universal. Many carriers choose visuals associated with trust, calm and professionalism. White and silver often follow, signalling purity and progress. Symbols of flight and optimism recur too, such as birds, wings, globes and rising suns. Each element makes sense on its own, but together they create an increasingly narrow visual language that feels safe, familiar and reassuringly corporate.
This same pattern appears in other sectors where safety and reliability are seen as essential. Water companies often rely on the familiar water-drop motif, while AI and technology brands frequently use star or orbit symbols to represent innovation and the future. Yet in both cases, individuality becomes secondary to convention.
This consistency is not accidental. In sectors built on safety and precision, familiarity carries weight. For aviation, airlines operate in high-stakes environments where reliability underpins public confidence, so it is understandable that visual expression often leans conservative. Yet this convergence comes at a cost. When everyone communicates trust in the same way, the message loses its power and distinction fades.
The recent Aeroitalia vs Alitalia ruling revealed the commercial risk behind that sameness. In early 2025, Italy’s Court of Appeal ordered Aeroitalia to rebrand entirely by January 2026, citing a “risk of consumer confusion” with Alitalia, whose identity and trademarks were purchased by ITA Airways for €90 million only two years earlier. Aeroitalia’s defence centred on national pride, with its CEO stating, “References to Italy and the colours of the Italian flag will remain because we are an Italian airline.” But being Italian is not a differentiator, especially when another brand already owns that narrative. When two carriers share the same palette, tone and story, the market rarely treats them as equals. One becomes the benchmark, the other the copy. The value of Alitalia’s trademark alone was €90 million, and the ruling has left Aeroitalia facing millions more in rebranding costs before accounting for lost recognition and trust.
The ROI of Risk: How Distinctiveness Creates Pricing Power
In aviation, differentiation is more than an aesthetic advantage. It is a commercial one. The world’s strongest airline brands are not just recognised for how they look, but for how quickly their values and standards come to mind. In marketing science, this is known as mental availability: the likelihood of being remembered first when a customer considers a purchase. Distinctive assets such as colour, tone, typography and experience help enable that recall, but what truly sustains it is when a company’s values are fully embodied from top to bottom.
Research consistently links distinctiveness with pricing power. A 2024 study on airline brand equity found that brand image, awareness and perceived service quality directly influence a passenger’s willingness to pay a premium. (MDPI Systems Journal, 2024) When brands converge visually or verbally, they become interchangeable, and price becomes the only differentiator left.
That dynamic played out recently in Italy. By echoing the look and tone of Alitalia, Aeroitalia did not inherit its credibility; it undermined its own. The airline must now fund a complete rebrand before January 2026, a process likely to cost millions, not including the harder-to-measure loss of recognition and trust. When similarity becomes strategy, distinction becomes expense.
As industries become increasingly automated and design tools more accessible, the risk of visual and verbal convergence grows. The lesson from aviation is clear: when familiarity becomes a formula, distinctiveness disappears. True differentiation will belong to the brands that define themselves through conviction, not convention — those whose identity, behaviour and values are unmistakably their own. In an age shaped by algorithms, individuality remains the most valuable asset of all.