THE MEANING GAP: Why Most Brands Are Seen, But Not Understood
- London : Los Angeles (LO:LA)
- 7 hours ago
- 5 min read
Brands today are more visible than ever. They post more content, launch more campaigns, sponsor more events, and push more messages across more channels in more formats than any time in history.
On paper, visibility should equal success. After all, if people are seeing you, surely that means your brand is working. Except it doesn’t. And it’s not. Because being seen is not the same as being understood. And this is the crisis facing most modern brands:
The Meaning Gap - the widening space between what a brand says and what people actually take away.
It’s the gap between visibility and relevance. Between awareness and resonance. Between attention and understanding. And in a world overflowing with content, this Meaning Gap is becoming one of the biggest risks to brand value, and one of the biggest opportunities for the brands willing to close it.
This is the natural sequel to a truth we explored recently: intention matters more than attention. But intention is only the starting point. The real competitive advantage comes when intention translates into meaning, when everything a brand says, shows, and does creates a coherent, unmistakable sense of “this is who we are.” This is where the brands people truly love, trust, and talk about live.
But most brands don’t live there.
The World Is Flooded With Content - And Starving for Meaning
Modern marketing is optimized for volume, not value. Brands are producing more content than ever, and audiences are consuming less of it than ever. When attention is finite, and content is infinite, something breaks, and what breaks is meaning.
People see more, notice less, and remember almost nothing.
This creates the illusion of brand success:
high impressions
decent engagement
reach is going up
…but no real shift in how people feel, think, choose, or talk. Because content creates awareness. Meaning creates preference. And preference, in a competitive market, is everything.
The Meaning Gap Explained
The Meaning Gap is the distance between:
What a brand intends to communicate and what people actually understand and internalize.
This gap emerges when:
The brand has no clear point of view
Messaging is inconsistent
The design feels generic
Campaigns are performative rather than purposeful
Teams are misaligned internally
Content is built for the algorithm instead of the audience
The brand behaves one way and markets another
When you look at the world’s most interchangeable industries right now, wellness, fintech, real estate, CPG, and hospitality, the Meaning Gap is everywhere. Hundreds of brands are visible. Almost none are memorable. Visibility is the output. Meaning is the outcome.
The Psychology of Meaning (Why It Matters So Much)
Humans are meaning-making machines. We look for:
identity
narrative
consistency
values
pattern
connection
We form emotional bonds first, rational evaluations second. And meaning acts as the glue between emotion and memory.
Brands with meaning:
live longer in people’s minds
earn trust faster
retain customers longer
command higher price premiums
create loyal advocacy
generate cultural influence
compete on character, not category
Meaning is how a brand becomes more than a choice. Meaning is how a brand becomes a belief.
Why Most Brands Fail to Create Meaning
Here’s the uncomfortable truth:
Most brands don’t know what they mean.
They know what they sell. They know what they promise. They know what they “stand for” in a corporate sense. They know their values, at least on a poster.
But meaning? Meaning is deeper.
And most brands skip the work because it requires:
confronting ambiguity
choosing a point of view
rejecting sameness
committing to consistency
aligning teams
removing ego from creativity
saying no to ideas that don’t ladder up
Brands fail to create meaning when they chase:
Attention over intention. Trend over truth. Reach over relevance. Activity over clarity. And when meaning is missing, everything becomes tactical and forgettable.
Brands With Meaning Close the Gap Instantly
The Three Layers of Meaning
To close the Meaning Gap, brands must define and design meaning on three levels:
1. Conceptual Meaning (The Intellectual Layer)
What does your brand stand for? What’s your point of view? What is the big idea behind your existence?
2. Emotional Meaning (The Human Layer)
What should your audience feel? What relationship should they have with you? What role do you play in their life?
3. Experiential Meaning (The Behavioral Layer)
How does meaning show up where it matters? What do you do consistently that proves your meaning?
These three layers must align for meaning to be believable. A brand that says one thing, feels like another thing, and acts a third way? Meaning evaporates.
Meaning Isn’t What You Say, It’s What They Receive
Here’s the part most brands misunderstand:
Brands don’t get to decide their meaning alone. People assign meaning based on:
What you show
What you repeat
What you reinforce
What you prioritize
What you ignore
What you commit to
What you avoid
How you behave
How you make them feel
Meaning is the sum of everything. Not the highlight reel.
This is why consistency is not repetition; consistency is alignment.
How to Close the Meaning Gap
Closing the Meaning Gap requires an intentional shift in brand thinking.
Here’s the LO:LA way:
Step 1: Articulate your meaning with brutal clarity.
Not a mission statement. Not a tagline. Not a value set.
A meaning statement: the human, emotional, intellectual truth at the heart of the brand.
Step 2: Build behavioral meaning.
How does your brand act? What does it refuse to compromise on? What does it consistently do for its audience?
Step 3: Design meaning into every touchpoint.
Your visual identity, your tone, your experience, your interactions, all must signal the same meaning, even without explanation.
Step 4: Remove noise that confuses your meaning.
If it’s off-brand, it’s off-strategy. If it’s just for attention, it’s wasted effort. If it doesn’t reinforce your meaning, it erodes it.
Step 5: Measure meaning, not mentions.
Ask: Do people understand us? Do they feel what we intend? Do they assign the meaning we designed?
Clarity is a KPI.
The Meaning Gap Is a Leadership Problem Before It’s a Creative Problem
Closing the Meaning Gap isn’t about better copy or better campaigns. It’s about leadership choosing to build from the inside out.
Meaning requires:
alignment
discipline
a point of view
conviction
a willingness to choose
a refusal to chase trends
a high bar for creative consistency
a low tolerance for mediocrity
Great brands don’t “find” meaning. They decide it, then build relentlessly around it.
The Opportunity: Meaning Is the Last True Unfair Advantage
As AI commoditizes content…As brand identities become templates…As creativity becomes faster, cheaper, and more automated…As attention becomes algorithmic and unpredictable…
Meaning becomes priceless.
Because meaning requires:
taste
intention
humanity
context
culture
storytelling
emotional intelligence
design intelligence
AI can replicate content. It can’t replicate meaning.
Meaning is human. Meaning is leadership. Meaning is brand.
And meaning is what turns:
attention into affinity
interest into loyalty
noise into narrative
customers into believers
brands into cultural forces
This is the next frontier.
Conclusion: To Be Understood, You Must First Mean Something
The brands that will thrive in the next decade won’t be the ones that post the most, shout the loudest, or jump on trends the fastest. They will be the ones with the clearest, strongest, most consistent meaning — the ones who close the gap between what they say and what people feel. Attention might get you seen. Intention gives you direction. But meaning is what makes your brand unforgettable. At LO:LA, this is the work we love most: helping brands articulate, design, and deliver meaning with creativity, clarity, and consistency. Because when you close the Meaning Gap, you don’t just make better marketing, you build a brand people choose.