Clever logo… (well I thought so anyway)

?????????

squiggles

well, that’s easy for you to say, GrahamS

Yunki, no, we’ve gone back to the beginning, where TJ had a resonable point about the significance and impact of logos being overstated. That was fine then and it’s fine now.

He then went on trolling (I hope) marathon with far more extreme and absolute claims, which people found incredible. He’s been wrong far more than he’s been right.

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/bivvy-bag-for-sale-1

is it not just a bivy bag?

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/f1-9

what is a red bull, is it not just another car with a driver?

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/putoline-chain-wax-report

surley its just chain wax.?

wwaswas – yer gonna have to shoot the dog

What’s a dog?

..more to the point what colour is it?

Shoot the dog..

or shoot the brand?

Would you like to make a point whilst being dismissive?

No-one’s claiming that a logo will make you buy a product. That’s absurd, and we’re not stupid on this thread. So there’s no point arguing counter to that.

There are a few arguments here:

1) what constitutes a ‘brand’
2) how much we are all influenced by marketing, advertising and brand management in general
3) how desginers can draw on common associations and psychological and even neurological factors to create certain images with colours, fonts and images.

Those three are fascinating topics, but the thread’s been badly polluted with derogatory comments about gullibility, lack of understanding and reductio ad absurdum.

<loud-hailer>bring back jackthedog</loud-hailer>

not being sarccy here but what was your point in relation to what I said rather than the thread in general?
1) what constitutes a ‘brand’- no idea it seem to me to be just the name of the company – the fact I could say something about them seems to mean something but I can say something about all names.
2) how much we are all influenced by marketing, advertising and brand management in general – not as much as advertisers would have us believe and more that TJ seems to think
3) how desginers can draw on common associations and psychological and even neurological factors to create certain images with colours, fonts and images. – Not sure they do this just seems to be trying to apply science type babble to marketing to justify the spend. They tend to make something pretty but who knows its significance. take the green Giant for corn this will be more successful than using
steaming excrement as your logo. Will it be better than a yellow giant or something fluttering butterflies ?how do we test this exactly in the real world with sales?
I dont say it does nothing I say it is not as great as some folk think it is. no matter how good some logos are I would still not buy their tat.

Re My point – someone was saying that the the fact I probably recognised shimano stuff but would not buy their shifters meant they had done their job. If this was the case then just use something highly offensive. I would definitely remember it and still not buy their wares.
Their is some strongly polarised positions on both sides. I would not dismiss it out of hand nor would I say a good logo alone will sell tat.

nothing wrong with reductio ad absurdum either

Some quick answers:

1) what constitutes a ‘brand’

Everything we know, or think we know, about a product and associate with it.

2) how much we are all influenced by marketing, advertising and brand management in general

Well, as an example – as a step to estimate the value of the Coca Cola brand, what is the difference in value of the Coca Cola company, and the RC Cola company? What is the actual difference in the products?

I dont say it does nothing I say it is not as great as some folk think it is. no matter how good some logos are I would still not buy their tat.

Nobody has claimed anything like this

nothing wrong with reductio ad absurdum either

Agreed

I answer you Junkyard because you seem to take a more reasonable position than some people.

no idea it seem to me to be just the name of the company – the fact I could say something about them seems to mean something but I can say something about all names.

Yep, that was pretty much my definition to. It’s just an identifier, like a name or logo.

By naming/recognising it you have somewhere to “hang your feelings” about it (i.e. your perception of the brand) and obviously the brand owners try to manipulate that perception to be positive in any way they can (often called “branding” or “brand management”).

One of the very first feelings you might hang there might be whether you like the logo/style or not.

not as much as advertisers would have us believe and more that TJ seems to think

Sounds about right.

Not sure they do this just seems to be trying to apply science type babble to marketing to justify the spend.

I’m sure there is an element of that. But many advanced mammals can be taught to understand basic symbols and associate them with emotion.

no matter how good some logos are I would still not buy their tat.

I don’t think anyone has claimed you would. (Only TJ deals in extremes and absolutes.)

It’s just a nudge. Nothing more. It’s not mind control.

how much we are all influenced by marketing, advertising and brand management in general – not as much as advertisers would have us believe

Hmm. I dunno what your reasoning is for this. Of course in the simplistic case you aren’t going to listen to Barry Scott shouting at you about Cillit Bang and think ‘oh I’ll buy it then it’s great’ and go out and pick some up.

But that’s not how it’s meant to work. Advertising (as distinct from those other things) is all about product recognition – making it stick in your brain. They’ve long known that it’s not simply a case of saying ‘our stuff’s great’ because we are more cynical than that. It’s about making you familiar with the brand. Their studies have shown that people often (but not always) stick with what they know rather than shopping around objectively. So if you can create familiarity then you’ll do better.

Hence the Marmite campaign featuring people gagging at the taste of their product, or the Yorkie one saying ‘not for girls’. Clearly they weren’t trying to exclude half their target market! It’s just to bring the name to the front of your mind. Then the Cadbury’s one with the drumming gorilla – nothing to do with chocolate at all but we were talking about it on here for ages. After that, I can guarantee that very many more people stood at the display of hundreds of chocolate bars and thought ‘yeah I like dairy milk, I’ll have one of those’. I like chocolate – almost all chocolate bars. So Cadburys can’t try and persuade me I like theirs over other ones, cos they know I know what they all taste like. So when I choose a choccy bar I just grab whatever one pops into my mind at the time. They are trying to influence which one pops into my mind by placing more connections in my brain relating to their product.

As for it being bolleux – most big company managers are keenly interested in the bottom line. So when they shell out on a big ad campaign they want to see results, in terms of sales. They look at sales before and after the campaigns. And lo and behold, these things are very successful. Not with everyone, of course, but overall they are.

So you might think it’s rubbish but really it’s not.

And that’s just advertising – brand associations are more than just this.

no matter how good some logos are I would still not buy their tat.

I don’t think anyone has claimed you would.
Again this seems to be a popular misconception – logos (or brands more specifically) don’t make you buy stuff but pretty much every product has its target audience and therefore they develop a brand around appealing to their market. What is tat to one person is bling to the next, what is luxury to another is ostentatious to someone else. Branding just talks broadly to the main target audience in order to capture as much market share as they can – which goes back to my Daz v Ariel example – with both brands owned by the same manufacturer. Why do they own two brands? Because each brand sells to a different target market. Daz buyers wouldn’t buy Ariel and vice versa.

everytime you post on here a kitteh dies

But many advanced mammals can be taught to understand basic symbols and associate them with emotion.

well conditioning works best with non verbal folk – though we can be trained s well. However i can ignore this by say applying a verbal rule. All advertising is lies and there claims are false [ not saying this is true just an example] therefore no matter what they do I will discount their claims and make my own decision. Power band for example
The green cross code is a good example of where we use rules to govern our behaviour -Perhaps advertisers are trying to get us to apply a rule though this – M & S perhaps with the food adverts so we associate quality with them Asda we thing cheap for example tesco we think barstewards [ oh just me again then]. I see the point tbh of this and assume it has a degree of success with some /most people. Whether it make us more likely to buy form them I am less sure.

is all about product recognition – making it stick in your brain.

it is not it is about getting me to buy the product/s. Using gary glitter to advertise disney/childrens toys would make the adds stick in my mind but i dont think it would make me buy the products.

They are trying to influence which one pops into my mind by placing more connections in my brain relating to their product.

a reasonable point and i dont disagree. this and product awareness is pretty much all they can achieve. How much this affects or influences sales I am not sure. Look at the honda ad which was well received as an advert has it improved sales? I dont know i dont read the car threads on here tbh.

So when they shell out on a big ad campaign they want to see results, in terms of sales. They look at sales before and after the campaigns.

It probably does affect sales in the short run – i am sure it must to some degree. However I feel there is a bit of the running to stand still happening here as well. Their competitors also do the same so the overall effect is hard to scientifically quantify. Even if advertising is successful and say IBM wiped out Mac. How we would know it was not down to the product actually being better rather than the advertising being brilliant.

M_F I think that got said in relation to someone who claimed Shimano had done their job because I could probably recognise their logo but would not buy their shifters. So written like that of course it is daft thing to say and no one is claiming that I accept it [ is not TJ 😉 ]but I was trying to say that recognising the logo alone is pointless if I wont buy the stuff.
I suspect many brands and names exist and pre-date when people paid attention to this sort of stuff – kellogs, heinz, Ford , VW shimano ?

Like a car crash victim in and out of a coma, I randomly dip in and out of this thread. In amongst the animals (what happened to the eggs?) page 37 has some people talking about branding in a way that makes sense to people that aren’t marketers or crazy persons.

Egg (can I still do that?)

It probably does affect sales in the short run – i am sure it must to some degree. However I feel there is a bit of the running to stand still happening here as well. Their competitors also do the same so the overall effect is hard to scientifically quantify. Even if advertising is successful and say IBM wiped out Mac. How we would know it was not down to the product actually being better rather than the advertising being brilliant.

To be honest – and I’m not trying to be nasty here – I don’t see the point of this sort of conjecture. The advertising industry has a very big interest in knowing what works and what doesn’t, and have done a lot of research to answer this sort of question. So I’m not saying that it isn’t good to question assumptions etc, but just popping up and saying stuff like this, or like TJ says (more extreme!!) is a bit daft.

Even if advertising is successful and say IBM wiped out Mac. How we would know it was not down to the product actually being better rather than the advertising being brilliant.

True, but I’d say there are plenty of areas where objectively inferior products seem to dominate a market over products that are technically better, but are not as well advertised.

> is all about product recognition – making it stick in your brain.

it is not it is about getting me to buy the product/s.

These are not mutually exclusive. Quite the opposite.

Using gary glitter to advertise disney/childrens toys would make the adds stick in my mind but i dont think it would make me buy the products.

🙂 True. As I said earlier, brand management and advertising is about trying to manipulate your perception of a brand to be positive.

The brand needs to be recognised to work. But you need to have a positive perception of it to influence you into buying it.

Note: I am now mainly posting to force TJ to kill more kittens.
Whatever they are.

I’m sorry.. but despite all the convoluted twists and turns that the pedantic wags have encouraged TJ to make.. It would appear that after all these pages he is still actually winning the debate.

really? Then maybe you can tell us what his point is and we can all stop

@ Dr J
Yes they do have a vested interest in shwing it works but why would you fall for what the marketers say – lets be honest there job is to sell – makes you a tad gullible. Would you expect them to go no it is all BS I am a snake oil seller to the gullible? I can give links to psychics and astrologers who will prove that what they do works if you want – more money, happier life, speak to the dead , meet the person of your dreams. this is partly tongue in cheek here but I am sure you get the point I am making.
Asking them to prove it and being a little dubious of folk whose job is to sell is a reasonable position. I cannot really think of how you could do a proper validated scientific study to prove either position re advertising /logos /marketing as you lack controls, blinds etc. I think waht I said was reasonable tbh. How would you know /prove it?nd is it not just sunning to stand still.
Do I believe what a marketing person tells me? Not really there job is partly hype and guff and this applies to the products they sell including themselves.

but I’d say there are plenty of areas where objectively inferior products seem to dominate a market over products that are technically better, but are not as well advertised.

true -i think I said earlier it works for “prestige” brands like say rapha or apple – though the product needs to be at least OK as well. If rapha products were dear and fell apart no one would buy them. So they need to be both dear and last at least as long as a £10 aldi top 😉

Do I believe what a marketing person tells me? Not really there job is partly hype and guff and this applies to the products they sell including themselves

And those parts you can ignore. The part of marketing that inmprints the product/brad/object/name in your mind, you cannot ignore.

Do you know any numbers I can phone to get what used to be directory enquiries? Anyone know how I can find cheap car insurance? Just a couple of numbers to start with

Yes they do have a vested interest in shwing it works but why would you fall for what the marketers say

I’m not falling for what the marketers say, I’m “falling for” what independent studies of marketing say.

well of course but brand recognition – making me aware of a product clearly works as I wont buy /use something if I dont know it exists I am fairly sure I accepted that as something that could be achieved in my opening post tbh.

DrJ – Member

Yes they do have a vested interest in shwing it works but why would you fall for what the marketers say

I’m not falling for what the marketers say, I’m “falling for” what independent studies of marketing say.

Can you show us them? Independent decent quality studies?

All advertising is lies and there claims are false [ not saying this is true just an example] therefore no matter what they do I will discount their claims and make my own decision

Not all advertising is about making claims. What did the gorilla Cadburys add claim? Nothing at all.

is all about product recognition – making it stick in your brain.

it is not it is about getting me to buy the product/s

Most people buy the products that are stuck in their brain.

Cillit bang was a textbook example. Awful adverts, very annoying. And people hated the shouting. But everyone remembers the ads and remembers the products.

However I feel there is a bit of the running to stand still happening here as well.

Quite true.. but.. have you noticed how few brands are actually advertised?

Can you show us them? Independent decent quality studies?

Well I’ve read many times reports about ‘successful’ ad campaigns raising revenue. Do you think companies would pay for it if it didn’t improve profit?

well of course but brand recognition – making me aware of a product clearly works as I wont buy /use something if I dont know it exists I am fairly sure I accepted that as something that could be achieved in my opening post tbh.

sure, but i don’t know that anyone is claiming that people generally take adverts / marketing literally are they?

An abstract from google scholar search:

Title: Does Advertising Work: A Review of the Evidence
Author(s): Peter Kim, (Executive Vice President and U.S. Director of Strategic Planning, J. Walter Thompson)
Citation: Peter Kim, (1992) “Does Advertising Work: A Review of the Evidence”, Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 9 Iss: 4, pp.5 – 21
Keywords: Advertising effectiveness, Brand awareness, Marketing strategy, Recession
DOI: 10.1108/07363769210037042 (Permanent URL)
Publisher: MCB UP Ltd
Abstract: Examines the effectiveness of advertising in the light of the shift of marketing budgets in favour of promotions. Discusses the reasons for this shift and summarizes studies which show that advertising does work, especially during recessions. Concludes that advertising should not be neglected since, unlike promotions, it both raises sales in the short term and builds brands in the long term.

there is independently funded research of psychics and astrologers too.
I get your point though but I have not seen any research posted up though I have seem plenty of claims about this research – and despite asking every time someone says it I have yet to see some research.
I doubt you can use effective controls, blinds or baselines to prove very much tbh. I suspect I could easily criticise any research you publish [ Psychology degree FWIW].
Again I dont doubt it can do some stuff just less than they would have you believe and more than TJ thinks

Case Study

Let’s take a look at these guys who carved themselves an impressive niche in the UK fruit drink market:

http://innocentdrinks.co.uk/

Straight away you’ve got a nice recognisable logo that references the brand name, both of which reference a brand value (i.e. not adding things to drinks and keeping them “innocent”).

They repeat that image multiple times to get it stuck in your head. I count at least 21 little “innocent” fruit faces on that main page.

So that’s recognition established and possibly your first brand value.

They’ve gone for a lovely sans-serif font. Clean, friendly and approachable. They use that font for their main logo then a rounded variant of it for other headings:

They’ve gone for some blocks of solid primary colours on the packaging – pushing the childish innocence angle.

They’ve got irreverent language on their packaging and website combined with doodles, graffiti and jokes to push the “happy, friendly, approachable” thing further.

They push the approachable thing further by having a blog, involving you with games, inviting you to communicate with them, publishing their ethics, having a charitable foundation etc.

All these things are little nudges about the brand and how they’d like you to feel about it.

Of course, if the drinks were bogging then none of that would work very well. But the foundations of “the innocent brand” are set up by those images and texts, probably before you’ve even tried the drink.

(Perhaps jackthedog, or someone else who actually knows about brand marketing and stuff, could expand a little on my uneducated waffley points while TJ is off having kittens. Whatever they are.)

Jeremy – contributing repeatedly and tenaciously to a 30 odd page thread, then suddenly having the temerity to suggest it’s gone on too long having arbitrarily got bored of it yourself suggests you have little concept that other people might have things to say beyond what you consider to be the final word.

Which perhaps in turn suggests why trying to explain to you something that doesn’t align with your deeply entrenched, immovable and often seemingly and quite bafflingly inward looking views could have been a futile pursuit from the outset.

Other people are still talking, and their views are as valid as yours.

Even if advertising is successful and say IBM wiped out Mac. How we would know it was not down to the product actually being better rather than the advertising being brilliant.

The iPhone outsells its rivals by a margin I assume is huge, yet I’ve heard that technically it’s actually the inferior product. I certainly hear my iPhone 4 using acquaintances moaning about how poor an actual phone it makes.

If that’s right (I use neither so can’t myself vouch for it), we can I think safely assume that the power of the brand, in the current iteration of the instance you suggested, is having the desired affect on millions of consumers.

But that’s anecdotal. Somebody else might be able to link to that chart comparing the specs of the smart phones which highlights Apple’s failings. I can’t. I’m happy to be proved wrong if I am.

I will though continue to stand by any suggestion I have made so far in this thread that quality and validity of a product can and often does play a distant second fiddle to the aspirations inherent in the brand, and that branding is a hugely effective, powerful and influential communication tool, with reaches spreading further than many people think.

I suspect many brands and names exist and pre-date when people paid attention to this sort of stuff – kellogs, heinz, Ford , VW shimano ?

Yes, they may have done. And the reason they’re still hear is partly due to the fact that they kept up with changes in commerce. Alongside those long-standing companies were many more we’ve never heard of which fell by the wayside when consumer buying habits changed focus from need to desire.

Henry Ford was famously a no nonsense businessman, noted for that famous quote “you can have any colour as long as it’s black”.

Today, that very same company, still owned by the same family, uses this language:

“With its dynamic styling, wealth of intuitive technologies and precision-engineered performance […] the new Focus delivers a truly addictive driving experience.When you start the new Focus, you start so much more than a car.”

That, taken from the website, talks directly to the heart, not the head. Yes, those dots in my quote cover some facts about the car’s CO2 performance which the head likes to hear, but for many, many people standing in a car showroom logic plays second fiddle to that which floats their boat. Just to find yourself spending multiple thousand pounds on a new car shows that logic has often already been thrown out of the window. And Ford knows it. “So much more than a car.”

It’s worth noting the above is trying to sell a practical, mid range, middle-of-the-road family hatchback. I’m sure we can extrapolate from there to the sort of language used to sell their more emotive products, such as those with convertible roofs, two seats, large engines or sporting pretensions.

Tellingly, another of your examples, Kelloggs makes quite a big deal of its heritage. Recent adverts have focussed directly on it. It has turned its longevity into a brand device. That heritage is hugely valuable to them, but only if they can ensure you remain aware of it. How do they do that? They build their brand around it.

They dedicate the top strip of every box to that well known logo, which is little more than a stylised take of the company founder’s signature. And you make the direct link to its heritage immediately enough to use it as an example on this thread.

Too many words, not enough pics.

Terrible logo…

Fantastic logo…

independent Molgrips. Like – an acedemic? Published in a journal? Peer reviewed? you know the usual standards for credible research

Author(s): Peter Kim, (Executive Vice President and U.S. Director of Strategic Planning, J. Walter Thompson)

JWT, the world’s best-known marketing communications brand,

Again I dont doubt it can do some stuff just less than they would have you believe

They would have me believe what, exactly?

They’ve gone for a lovely sans-serif font.

You know, I was trying to figure out where I’d seen the rounded one before.. then I realised it’s the font used in those old skool fridge-magnet alphabets we had as kids. Now if that’s not an evocative font I dunno what is.

independent Molgrips. Like – an acedemic? Published in a journal? Peer reviewed? you know the usual standards for credible research

TJ, how the flying f*ckeroo am I supposed to find peer reviewed scientific papers on advertising withotu paying to sign up for a load of journals?

Grow the fk up you ignorant sod. Why d’you have to philibuster every single thread by dragging smaller and smaller tiny points through the bloody mud to try and find something on which you can score?

You have no idea of the exact sales figures before and after campaigns, and neither do I. This thread, like most, can only be a discussion of points of view. There is no victor. All I want is for you to accept the merit of my arguments even if you disagree with them. I’ve done it to yours.

I will though continue to stand by any suggestion I have made so far in this thread that quality and validity of a product can and often does play a distant second fiddle to the aspirations inherent in the brand, and that branding is a hugely effective, powerful and influential communication tool, with reaches spreading further than many people think.

And I take comfort in this when I go for a job interview: people spec out the product they want to buy, go into a shop, and buy something different based on some emotion, or unexpected feature. So if I get to a job interview, even if I haven’t got a chance on paper, I still have the opportunity to convince the hirer to give me the job based on something irrational 🙂