By Rich Pemberton
In an age where attention is currency and relevance, fleeting, what distinguishes the truly unforgettable from the merely visible? This piece explores the concept of Remarkability – a science-informed framework for understanding how businesses, individuals, and organisations become memorable, meaningful, and worthy of being talked about.
In business, visibility is often mistaken for value. We glorify the pervasive: those who dominate our feeds, flood our inboxes, and trend across platforms. But ubiquity isn’t memorability. Nor is frequency a guarantee of staying power. Some brands are everywhere and nowhere at once – they gain our attention but are absent from our minds.
The rare few, however, break through.
This is the domain of Remarkability – not a slogan or a superlative, but a measurable set of qualities that explain how certain people, brands, and ideas shape memory, stir emotion, and move culture forward.
At its core, Remarkability helps us answer a deceptively simple question: Why do we remember what we remember? And by extension, how can organisations design for meaning, not just visibility.
Designing for the Brain
Neuroscience offers a crucial starting point. The brain isn’t built to process everything. It filters. It prioritises. And what it keeps, tends to share five traits: novelty, emotional intensity, personal relevance, consistency, and narrative.
We remember what moves us. Neuroscience shows that emotional experiences are more deeply etched into memory—they quite literally take a different path through the brain, engaging the amygdala to enhance memory consolidation via the hippocampus1. And when something aligns with our values or feels personally meaningful, we don’t just remember it—we act on it. Research shows that stories which evoke empathy and reflect personal relevance activate more brain regions associated with attention, memory, and decision-making2. That’s why some stick and others fade: emotion and meaning are the glue.
Remarkability operationalises this through a 10-dimension framework, built from neuroscience, behavioural economics, and brand intelligence. Five dimensions focus on values: empathy, transparency, keeping promises, purpose-driven action, and impact on people and the planet. Five more assess attention, emotion, memory, relevance, and personal impact.
Together, they form a full-spectrum view of what makes an entity not just successful, but sticky.
Patterns in the Remarkable
What emerges from applying this framework is both intuitive and revealing. Remarkable brands and leaders aren’t always the biggest or best funded.
But they do behave differently.
They disrupt expectations – not through volume, but clarity or boldness.
They connect emotionally, not just rationally.
They create consistency between what they say and what they do.
They show up at culturally significant moments – and do so with unmistakable intent.
Take MSCHF, the Brooklyn-based art collective, whose recent drops double as cultural critiques. Walt Disney and His Sons, a sculpture released as Mickey Mouse entered the public domain, reimagines Disney trapped by his own creations. Their Rock Candy Ring – a diamond hidden inside a lickable candy shell – is absurd, romantic, and defiantly anti-luxury. Each release is less a product, more a provocation.
Fenty Beauty, launched by Rihanna, didn’t just diversify makeup shades – it rewired the industry’s defaults. Its launch made inclusion visible at scale, shifting expectations across beauty, fashion, and media, not with slogans, but with product design that told the story.
Canva, the design software platform, continues to grow as a quiet force for equity. Its intuitive, free tools empower non-designers globally – particularly educators, nonprofits, and small business owners. With simplicity and generosity built into the product experience, it makes creativity feel like a right, not a privilege.
Schneider Electric exemplifies this shift. Its recognition as the most sustainable company in 2024 is more than symbolic – it reflects systemic integration of sustainability in how it operates, communicates, and serves. From reducing its own emissions to helping customers decarbonise, the company embodies the future-facing model of PLC responsibility.
In a business climate where ESG expectations are hardening, Remarkability gives large organisations a practical, measurable pathway to cultural relevance and long-term shareholder value.
Forgettable by Design
On the flip side, brands that underperform on Remarkability aren’t necessarily tired. They’re often polished. But they suffer from sameness. Safe messaging. Over-optimised touchpoints. Execution that lacks emotional or cultural weight.
Cognitive psychology refers to this as the Von Restorff effect – the tendency to remember the item that is different in a series of similar things3. The problem is, many businesses spend years engineering similarity – in UX, language, values, and identity. The result: camouflage.
In appealing to everyone, they become forgettable to all.
The Strategic Shift: From Reach to Resonance
Remarkability suggests a new strategic lens. Not “How do we get noticed?” but “How do we create meaning that endures?” This isn’t a soft shift. It’s a business imperative.
Consumers are showing higher trust in companies that reflect their values4. Younger generations are voting with their wallets. Transparency and accountability are no longer differentiators, they’re expectations. Brands that fail to meet them don’t just risk irrelevance. They risk invisibility.
Remarkability at Scale
While challenger brands often lead in cultural agility, the principles of Remarkability are increasingly vital for large, public companies. With growing pressure from shareholders, regulators, and consumers, it’s not enough to perform – you must stand for something.
Schneider Electric exemplifies this shift. Its recognition as the most sustainable company in 2024 is more than symbolic – it reflects systemic integration of sustainability in how it operates, communicates, and serves. From reducing its own emissions to helping customers decarbonise, the company embodies the future-facing model of PLC responsibility.
In a business climate where ESG expectations are hardening, Remarkability gives large organisations a practical, measurable pathway to cultural relevance and long-term shareholder value.Â
A Human Standard for a Noisy World
The future belongs to those who lead with coherence and soul. Those who show their working. Who speak plainly when others hide behind polish. Who prioritise cultural contribution over campaign KPIs.
And while Remarkability can’t be faked, it can be designed.
Not for perfection. But for presence.
Learn more about the Remarkability framework here: https://www.remarkably.co/remarkability
Rich Pemberton
