Why do companies need a new logo, if customers can’t remember it?

Changing the logo of a company or brand may have an impact on both the company’s image and customer recognition. However, new companies are launched into the global market every single day. According to the GEM Global Report (2017), a ‘staggering 100 million businesses are launched annually. It comes to just over three businesses every second, or 11,000 per hour.’ Consequently, it is impossible that people will remember all those brands. In fact, nearly 80 per cent of people cannot recall logos precisely, even though they usually see them in daily life (Signs, 2017). Therefore, is it better to focus on communication and public relations strategies, instead of changing the logo?

On the one hand, there are some reasons why brands want to update their logo. First of all, they claim that their logos have gone out of style and look old-fashioned (Upfront Analytics, 2015). For instance, Instagram has made a big change to its logo by discarding the old version with the rainbow and camera lens as a bridge. Instagram believes that old design was becoming increasingly dated, and did not reflect its community (Medium, 2016). Thus, changing the logo can better suit the aesthetics of the application’s users.

Furthermore, Marco Schembri, an Italian industrial product designer, has speculated on what famous logos would look like if they were affected by their own products. ‘McDonald’s logo gets fat from burgers, Starbucks logo mermaid looks edgy after drinking coffee, Gillette is cut into pieces with a razor and you can barely see the Absolut logo due to the alcohol in the blood system’ (Bored Panda, 2016). This idea is able to measure how customers perceive brands.

In contrast to evidence that presents the view that changing the logo can be beneficial, an alternative perspective illustrates that there are some negative consequences. The ‘Branded in Memory’ study by Signs (2017) revealed that most people cannot recognize famous logos completely perfectly from their collective memories. Even though people see them in everyday life, it is still exceedingly difficult to recreate them without looking at them.

Signs asked 150 Americans to draw ten famous logos from memory: 7-Eleven, Apple, Adidas, Burger King, Domino’s, Foot Locker, Ikea, Starbucks, Target and Walmart. The resulting 1,500 drawings were created over a period of 80 hours. The overall results show that only 16 per cent of people drew near-perfect logos, and 37 per cent were good but not perfect. Signs explained that ‘These ubiquitous emblems largely exist as fuzzy visions in our mind’s eye. One in 5 people thinks the Foot Locker referee wears a hat (he doesn’t), and nearly half of people believe the Starbucks mermaid does not wear a crown (she does). That only scratches the surface of what our study found out.’

In addition, there can be several negative impacts of a logo change. Firstly, when a brand’s logo changes over time, some people mistakenly conflate the old and new versions; this affects consumer perception of the brand, especially for existing customers who already feel familiar with the original version. As a consequence, this might reduce customers’ trust and confidence in the brand’s products and services. Secondly, the costs are considerable: companies have been known to spend millions of dollars having their corporate logos professionally designed. For instance, the Glasgow Olympics logo cost £95,000, and British Petroleum’s cost $210,000,000, including a branding package (Inkbot Design, 2017).

Therefore, it is necessary to ask, ‘Can brands handle the cost, if a new logo fails?’, and ‘Is a new logo an unnecessary waste of money for the company?’

To illustrate this, do you remember when Gap changed their logo? ‘The original Gap logo, showing the word “Gap” in capital letters inside a dark blue square, was replaced with a white square encasing a small blue square sitting over the letter “p” in “Gap”’ (The Guardian, 2010). They were forced to scrap an expensive new logo the day after its launch, following an online backlash from consumers. Thousands of users protested by posting critical comments on social media: there were about 2,000 comments on Facebook, 5,000 followers protested on their Twitter accounts, and a viral ‘Make your own Gap logo’ site produced almost 14,000 parody versions. Finally, the retailer admitted its failure, and responded by crowdsourcing new logo ideas on social media, before swiftly reverting to the original one a week later.

What action should companies take, instead of changing their logos? In my view, companies can focus more on developing effective marketing communications and public relations. This is an effective way of saving time and money, and is also best suited to fast-moving changes in trends. Another way is to launch a new brand with a different name and targeted customer. This will help to clearly identify the brand based on customer segmentation, and avoids confusion in offering products. For example, the H&M group has a multi-brand matrix organization, which presently includes eight well-defined brands: H&M, COS, & Other Stories, Monki, Weekday, Cheap Monday, H&M Home and ARKET. Each brand has its own responsible individual, and has local sales organizations (H&M, 2017).

In conclusion, as indicated in the study ‘Branded in Memory’ provided by Signs, most people cannot remember logos completely perfectly, even though they appear all around us, and we might see them a million times. Thus, there are other ways to grab customers’ attention, instead of changing the logo. These include creating an effective marketing communication and public relations strategy, as well as launching a new brand with a different name and targeted customer. This provides benefits not only in terms of great cost savings, but also allows companies the time to provide other impressive marketing campaigns to the public, in order to reach and engage their audiences in their specialized interest areas. Therefore, companies or brands should not waste time in changing their logos.

References:

Bored Panda (2016). 10 Famous Logos Affected By Their Products. [online] Available at: https://www.boredpanda.com/logos-affected-by-their-products-funny-rebranding-marco-schembri/ [Accessed 10 Oct 2017].

GEM Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (2017). GEM 2016 / 2017 Global Report [online] Available at: http://www.gemconsortium.org/report [Accessed 10 Oct 2017].

H&M (2017). H&M group | Company management. [online] Available at: https://about.hm.com/en/about-us/corporate-governance/company-management.html [Accessed 10 Oct 2017].

Inkbot Design (2017). Learn why Logo Design Contests are bad for Business. [online] Available at: http://inkbotdesign.com/logo-design-contests-bad-business/ [Accessed 11 Oct 2017].

Medium (2016). Designing a New Look for Instagram, Inspired by the Community. [online] Available at: https://medium.com/@ianspalter/designing-a-new-look-for-instagram-inspired-by-the-community-84530eb355e3 [Accessed 11 Oct 2017].

Signs (2017). Branded in Memory. [online] Available at: https://www.signs.com/branded-in-memory/ [Accessed 9 Oct 2017].

The Guardian (2010). Five brand logo redesigns that misfired and how to deal with the backlash. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2014/aug/01/brand-logo-redesign-airbnb-foursquare [Accessed 9 Oct 2017].

Upfront Analytics (2015). 5 Reasons Brands Change Their Logos. [online] Available at: http://upfrontanalytics.com/reasons-brands-change-logos/ [Accessed 9 Oct 2017].