Branding: Your Logo, And The Message That It Sends
Your logo is a critical component of your marketing, media and publicity campaign. It is a messenger.It is a static picture or typestyle which speaks volumes about your business, product, service or brand in the literal blink of a consumer's eye. It must be memorable, distinctive and must penetrate at a multitude of psychological (conscious and sub-conscious). Your logo is a the shortest but most powerfully efficient form of ideological communication that exists. The mind processes and recalls graphic images much more readily than slogans or copy.
A logo is a first impression, but it remains imprinted on your consumer audience's conscious and subconscious for a long time. You must take care to have this tiny image be the purified, concentrated essence of your identity. A potent logo is worth its weight in unobtainium. It is a holograph of everything that you are. It must be perfect.
The biggest threat to the efficacy of a logo is unintended symbolism, either by the visual similarity to something unsavory, or by the implications which can be drawn by a closer look at what your logo actually says; the first has an immediate effect, while the second tends to smolder. These flaws can undermine a brand.
Eric Lowitt, an author ("The Future Of Value") and professional speaker, is a passionate expert on the increasingly critical topic of sustainability.
He is one of our Senior Advisors and Experts at TNNWC, and recently included the following piece in his Newsletter. It struck home. Hard. I would strongly suggest that you read it carefully, and think of its implications for your brand, as well as for what unintended signals you may be sending with respect to sustainability... among other things.
Note: This article, written by author and strategic corporate planning expert Douglas E Castle was originally published (in various forms) in the Mad Marketing Tactics Blog, Sending Signals! Blog, The TNNWC Supplemental RSS Feed And Email Blog, as well as in The National Networker (TNNWC) Weekly Newsletter.
The excerpt from Eric Lowitt's Newsletter follows:
You Are What Your Corporate Logo Says You Are
In the wake of the vigorous debate about the status of green marketing (and responses like this one and this one), it’s important to remember the powerful message corporations’ logos convey. For example, several years ago, a friend pointed out the subliminal arrow embedded in FedEx’s corporate logo.
Admittedly it took me a couple days to really see it. After all, I was trying to turn the tide of long-term memory—I’ve seen countless FedEx trucks over the years. Only after staring at a FedEx truck for what seemed like an eternity (likely no more than 20 seconds), I finally noticed the arrow. Years later I can’t help but notice the arrow every time I spot a FedEx truck. What is the arrow’s significance? It communicates what the company is about—moving products, and aspirations, forward.
To grasp the power of FedEx’s logo, consider the following logo, used by Sherwin-Williams, best known for its success as a global paint manufacturer. What does this logo convey?
The company’s logo clearly conveys the image of a paint company with global reach. The paint being spilled all over the Earth (with the comment ‘Cover the Earth’) also suggests either that Sherwin-Williams has limited concern about its product’s environmental impact. Sherwin-Williams’s logo isn’t aligned with its measured concern for the environment (as witnessed by its environmental sustainability initiative, called EcoVision). ####
What does your logo say about you?
Faithfully, Douglas E Castle
Related articles
- Creative Logo Designs with Hidden Messages (logosdesignblog.com)
- 30 Brilliant Logos With Hidden Messages (adoholik.com)
- The Logo Test in Action (brandautopsy.com)
- Marketing, Promotion and Branding - A Brilliant Commercial, But Nobody Remembers The Name Of Your Product Or Service (madmarketingtactics.blogspot.com)
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