Recently, professionals have been debating the issues of whether or not logos are dead: a waste of time, money and effort. Some believe that in today’s digital age, logotypes will and have replaced logos as staples of brand identity. Still, others believe that iconic symbols are the cornerstone of visual identity. We believe the argument is centered around the wrong question. The question should be: “Which is more effective, logo or logotype?” We’ll let you answer that question for yourself. Can you clearly identify the two brands above? One is a logo, the other a logotype. Which did you recognize first?

Exactly! We are a visual species. We use signals to understand and navigate our world. As consumers, we use brand signals to understand and navigate the marketplace. Those in the logotype camp don’t fully understand how consumers see their world nor do they understand how brand signals work.

So why are logos so critical?

As brand signals, logos are visual icons providing two basic, yet necessary functions for brands: identification (a marker for finding a specific offering) and differentiation (how to tell that offering apart from others). Over time, they directly equate to their given brands. Whether you view them from a distance, or out of the corner of your eye, you equate these visual icons with the brands they represent. For this same reason, when driving in another country, you understand that a red octagonal sign means STOP, even if you don’t speak the language.

We are by no means stating that the logo is the brand. It is not. Nor are we saying that differentiation is provided by the logo. It isn’t. The logo is only part of a much larger brand picture. However, both the brand’s name and logo are core brand signals. They are hallmarks of the brand’s identity and greatly contribute to the overall experience. This is why children who can’t yet read still recognize the golden arches and cry out “McDonald’s!” They equate the brand signal with the brand.

We wanted to illustrate how this works and prove that logos are still a great tool for identification and differentiation, so we decided to conduct a little experiment. We have taken well-known logos and logotypes and blurred each to the same degree. We also removed the element of color to rule out any “chroma-bias”. For the purposes of this test, we chose to avoid highly stylized logotypes or icons that included type, as it is often subjective whether these are logos or logotypes.

If you’re still having trouble deciphering the wordmark above next to the Apple logo, simply scroll over that image or any of the images below to see the image “unblurred”.

See whether you can identify these logos and logotypes, and ask yourself which is more effective? We look forward to hearing your thoughts. Are logos dead or not?

Still think logos are a by-product of an illiterate era?

Look at the two shapes above. How would you pair these forms with the following words? Bouba and Kiki

There is a 95% to 98% likelihood that you paired the sharper sounds (obstruents) of the word “Kiki” with image on the left, and the softer sounds (sonorants) of “Bouba” with the softer image on the right.

As you can see, language carries meaning that transcends its literal definition with associative connotation. This makes developing brand names more than just a question of linguistics. Sound, shape and meaning must complement one another if the brand’s name, logo and logotype are to work in harmony.

Language, be it spoken or written, is the principle means through which most people formulate thoughts and convey them to others. However, we process spoken and written language in different regions of the brain. These distinct areas work together to process meaning.

In the world of brands, NAME is a core signal. Consumers use brand names to identify and differentiate, and companies use these signals to carry and convey meaning, communicating what makes their brand special. But, how is this information processed and how does it affect brand meaning?

Given that sound symbolism has been shown to transcend language barriers, it can be reasoned that letterforms themselves are simply abstract shapes based on the sounds they represent. Below we have overlapped the key letterforms with their corresponding shapes, so you can easily see how the relationship between obstruent and  sonorant symbols echo their visual counterparts.

Names are processed sounds and shapes (letters). Because different areas of the brain are responsible for spoken language (the parietal lobe) and vision/reading (the occipital lobe), it is important that a name’s visually and spoken meaning relate. Sound symbolism affects the way brand names are perceived. How a name sounds can affect its market performance as much as what to represents.

In 1929 German-American psychologist Wolfgang Köhler proved this relationship in psychological experiments conducted on the island of Tenerife. Köhler’s experiment asked participants which shape was called “Kiki” and which was called “Bouba”. He found a strong correlation (95% to 98% commonality) between two abstract shapes (similar to those shown above) and words “Bouba” and “Kiki” (the jagged shape being associated with “Kiki” and the rounded shape with “Bouba”). This became known as the Bouba/Kiki Effect. Later, In 2001, Dr. Vilayanur S. Ramachandran repeated Köhler’s experiment and showed a similar relationship between shapes and words.

As Köhler’s and Ramachandran’s experiments illustrate, sounds and shapes carry, not only, common characteristics but common meaning. The text time you’re evaluating a name, logo or logotype, consider the fact that form follows function.

The days of advertising-led brands are dead. A shift from monologue to dialogue has occurred. No longer can a company say one thing and do another. People want brands they can trust. Violate that trust and they won’t just flee, they’ll rebel.

People’s buying decisions are largely driven by brands which embody values that reflect their own. In other words, consumers aren’t buying the products that they like. They’re seeking out the brands that are like them. They’re choosing brands whose meaning reflects their own sense of identity, making a statement about who they are, and what they stand for. By choosing one brand over another, consumers are creating their own personal narrative, “This is who I am.” It is, in essence, a shared reality between company and consumer.

Beliefs and values combine to drive actions, both inside and outside the organization.

Different brands tell different stories. Consumers connect with brands that align with their beliefs, values, and sense of self. By combining these stories consumers form a mosaic, which expresses what they believe in. Whether they know it or not, consumers shop not only for goods and services, but for the meaning behind those purchases.

Given how fast competitors can copy one another, brand value is moving from features and benefits to an expression of the companies beliefs and values, giving context and added relevance to the offering. It’s about creating a personal connection between consumer and consumed. Therefore, employees must live the values of the brand in order to deliver an authentic brand experience. Over time beliefs and values decentralize decision making, by becoming the company’s culture. This ethos provides employees with an understanding of how it should act. Beliefs lived inside the company drive consumer experience outside the company. Consumers are attracted to the meaning embedded in those actions because it is relevant to their own identity.

On the flip side of the equation, employees are more effective when they’re emotionally invested in the brand’s greater purpose. Organizations that provide employees with greater emotional engagement, attract and retain not only better talent but people who understand and live the brand. It is these employees who cultivate ideas and deliver the brand to the public, not an ad campaign or PR push. It’s the people within the organization.

What does your brand stand for? Are those values helping people stand for something that matters to them or is your brand simply a facade?

“To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful.”

– Edward R. Murrow

As human beings, we are pre-wired to identify patterns. This allows us to understand relationships between cause and effect. Without this ability, brands would not exist. Brands are metaphors made up of patterns. We “skim” the world around us without consciously reading or listening. We recognize the patterns and instantly equate A to B. Even as you read this post, your mind equates each word form to its respective meaning. Brand signals work the same way. They provide mental shortcuts as they directly equate to the brand.

To illustrate how we assign given meaning to abstract symbols, we have scrambled the word forms in the following paragraph. However, you may be surprised by how easy it is to read.

Rereahsrecs at Cbamrdige Unevistiry hvae porevn waht trpyeapoghrs have kownn for yraes. We dno’t raed ecah letetr iuilndaivdly, rhaetr we see ecah wrod as a whloe. We tehn eqaute ecah wrod to a gievn mneaing. Our aitilby to raed wdors is besad on our frmilaiatiy wtih the lungaage. It dnoes’t meattr waht oedrr the leetrts are in, so lnog as the wrod froms are ricagenzolbe.*

Because your brain recognized the unique pattern of each word form above, you were able to read the paragraph. While the words were scrambled, the first and last letters remained constant. This formed a recognizable pattern. Your brain didn’t unscramble each word. You simply recognized the pattern and equated it to its meaning.

Just as your brain equated each of the above word forms to their given meaning, your brain equates shapes, sounds and other sensory inputs to their respective meanings. In the case of brand signals, the input equates to a specific brand.

Brand signals are multi-sensory cues that can take the form of a visual, sound, touch, taste, smell or action. These signals provide the tangibility necessary for consumers to identify and differentiate a given brand as well as drive consumers’ perceptions of the brand. That’s why we can recognize the shape of a coke bottle through the frost covered glass of a refrigerator door, the Nike swoosh out of the corner of our eye, the iconic design of an Apple product at a distance, or even hear the exhaust note of a Harley Davidson and equate each of these signals to their corresponding brand.

Patterns and signals allow us make sense of the world around us. As consumers, they allow us to make sense of the marketplace. Without brand signals, brands would hold no value in the eyes of consumers.

*In case you did have trouble reading the encrypted paragraph above, here it is in its deciphered form:

Researchers at Cambridge University have proven what typographers have known for years. We don’t read each letter individually, rather we see each word as a whole. We then equate each word to a given meaning. Our ability to read words is based on our familiarity with the language. It doesn’t matter what order the letters are in, so long as the words form are recognizable.

Long Tail Approach or Short-term Gain Leading to Long-term Loss

There’s a delicate balance between encouraging participation and surrendering control. Managing crowdsourced contributions not only takes considerable resources, it’s unlikely that the ideas submitted will be “on strategy” or “on brand”. Engaging consumers has always been paramount to building strong brands, but allowing the crowd to curate your brand is another thing altogether.

Arguably, crowdsourcing has been around for a long time. In fields such as chemistry, astronomy and other sciences, crowdsourcing has made large-scale projects feasible. Over the years many amateurs have made significant contributions to the fields of astronomy and space science. Comets, for example, are often discovered first by non-professionals.

However, in June, 2006 a Wired magazine article sparked a heated debate. In this article Jeff Howe first proposed the idea of “Crowdsourcing.” Whether you believe crowdsourcing is a gimmick or the next big thing, it’s important to note that the idea is still in its early, some would say idealistic, years. How it was proposed and what it may become will be largely based on how it is interpreted.

From Jeff Howe’s Crowdsourcing blog:

“I like to use two definitions for crowdsourcing:
The White Paper Version: Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call.”

“The Soundbyte Version: The application of Open Source principles to fields outside of software.”

Crowdsourcing, or community-based design as it is also known, was made viable by the internet, and perhaps more specifically, social media. Each day on twitter we hear both sides of the crowdsourcing argument. What some see as crowdsourcing’s biggest benefit, others sight as the practice’s biggest flaw: an undefined group and uninformed execution. While we lean towards the latter both are true, depending on your application.

Crowdsourcing works well for large-scale initiatives where gathering data would be otherwise impossible. For instance, the vastness of space makes it impossible for a single astrological organization to chart. With so many amateur astronomers pointing their telescopes to the sky the odds of catching an astrological phenomenon greatly increases. And when professionals share their astrological data, the community benefits on a whole.

One would think that applying this same logic to creativity or brand management would yield similar results. However, the challenges are quite different.

Crowdsourcing may reduce the expenditure in gaining insights into how consumers think about a given brand or category by telling us what’s important to them. It may eliminate the leading questions and group dynamics that distort focus groups. It may engage individuals who have a genuine interest in a given brand. However, it is not an all-encompassing solution to any given problem. There may be some advantages to the process, but there is also a dark side to crowdsourcing.

As it is commonly practiced in the marketing world, crowdsourcing forgoes strategy and outsources execution (We touched on the importance of acknowledging the intangibles between theory and practice in an earlier post “Merging Strategy and Execution“). These days, cash-strapped brands are looking for ways to cut costs. A model where the crowd makes the investment of time and labor yet is not compensated for their efforts, may not be sustainable and could cause a backlash. While currently the crowd benefits from the participation and pursuit of recognition, the future might present something far less idealistic—a digital sweatshop where crowd and brand each pays a high price only to see diminishing returns.

We’ve all heard a lot of talk about successful crowdsourced solutions. Personally, we have yet to see what we believe is a successful example of crowdsourced brand management or creative. The crowd is just another committee that produces results that are incredibly average.

• • •

Disclosure: We’ve read Jeff Howe’s Wired magazine article, but have yet to read his book: Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business. However, it is on our list.

Call it music branding, mnemonic branding, acoustic branding or sound design, brand sonification is an integral part of the brand experience, yet is often overlooked. It adds yet another opportunity for the brand to interact with people. Sonification cannot only improve a product’s usability, it can become a primary brand signal, connecting people and brands.

Much like visuals, sound isn’t restricted by the limitations of language. Sound is a metaphor for emotion, one that as humans we are pre-wired to understand. Our brain is registering sound 24/7. It never turns off that sense. The sense of sound triggers memory, second only to that of the sense of smell. Sounds, songs and jingles time stamp our memories. Sound takes us back and helps us to make sense of our world.

Functionally, sound can improve the usability of a product by guiding the user through a series of actions. However, sound can also be used to guide consumers’ perceptions of both a product and a brand. By manipulating auditory brand signals, a brand can manage consumers’ perceptions and expectations. So, it is essential that acoustic brand signals work in concert with the total brand experience, echoing its values and aesthetic.

On a category level, video games are a great example of the effective use of sound in experience design. The sonification of the interface helps user’s to navigate setup and enhances play. On a brand level, proprietary sounds provide the same level of guidance. Harley Davidson’s signature exhaust note, TiVo’s sound effect navigation, The Nokia ring-tone or “Nokia tune”… Each of these iconic sounds is so distinct that you are able to identify the brand without ever having to “see” the brand. Each sound equates to its respective brand.

Mobile devices have long lead the market in brand sonification. This may be driven by the fact that the core function of these small devices is sound delivery. Their high quality sound output makes audio easier to implement. If we apply this same logic to other industries, we can assume automotive is another industry that is sure to see great advancements in brand sonification. Their advanced theater systems provide automotive designers with a ready-made platform to leverage sound as they sculpt the interaction between car and driver.

While there are brands using brand sonification as a competitive advantage in a visual world, few do so well. Sound is an opportunity to communicate and differentiate because it provides an opportunity to interact even when no one is looking.  Sound design shouldn’t be limited to technology products. Many household products such as glass cleaner, ball point pens, or even food packaging have an opportunity to link a proprietary sound and experience. The mechanical action of opening a package, dispensing a product or squeezing that trigger on the Windex bottle could transform kinetic energy into sound. Because the sound is the direct result of a physical action, the sound can, over time, become a brand ritual.

Acoustic brand signals have been undervalued for far too long. Any and every sound that potential buyers experience is an opportunity. As technology becomes cheaper and products become more and more interactive, brands will increasingly need to leverage the auditory experience as well as the visual. There will be a greater need for a cohesive experience with those interfaces that align with the brand image. Those who start now will have an advantage over the competition.

Having a great product is no longer a guarantee of success. A Bain & Co. survey notes that 80 percent of CEOs believe that their product is differentiated, but only 8 percent of consumers agree. To truly stand out in the market, a product must embody the characteristics of its brand. But, with all the hoopla around branding, it’s no wonder that companies are continually lured into believing that their brand is their product and their product is their brand.

Many companies fail to achieve their branding goals because they mistake their brand for their product, service or technology. Simply put, a brand is none of these! A brand is an experience that lives at the intersection of promise and expectation. Your products are a way to deliver upon that promise. Forget features, concentrate on the unique experience you can provide.

Consumers believe that their decision-making process is completely rational. They examine a competitive set of products for consideration. This set represents the competitive offering, minus those the consumers sees as unworthy, based on past experience, reputation, perceived value, or any number of other factors. They evaluate products based on their own criteria. An emotional choice, rationalized logic. They make decisions based upon their beliefs, and belief leads to action.

In order to ensure that your product is preferred over those of your competitors, you must consider the complete brand experience and how will that experience will contribute to consumer perception.

Being first to bring new product or technology to market provides an exceptional opportunity to define the category and establish a clear position in the minds of consumers. Without the element of competition, the brand faces no resistance in owning its market. These brands define the markets they operate in by being the first and only to offer consumers a solution to a problem they may never have known they had. Being first has its advantages, but it comes at a price.

The first to market position is a market opportunity, not a brand strategy. Competitors are always drawn to new markets where the potential for profit is high and the competition is sparse. Product convergence is inevitable. Advances in technology have made it possible to emulate any product. Eventually, someone comes along with a better widget for a whole lot less. Or worse a new technology that makes your widget obsolete.

Pong meet Atari
Atari meet Nintendo
Nintendo meet PlayStation
PlayStation, meet Xbox
Xbox meet Wii

Eventually, someone else builds a better product based on superior technology and steals your position, or at the very least, dilutes it. To build a brand on a product or technology is putting the cart before the horse. Price and quality are unsustainable points of differentiation. By delivering on the benefits, as opposed to features, a brand can focus on owning a mindset position instead of a product position. This encourages innovation and as such your brand reflects its potential not its confinements.

If you think your product is your brand, think again!

An overwhelming number of social media “experts” are calling for companies to surrender control of their brands to a social media empowered public. Even Forrester Research went as far as to suggest that the day of the “brand manager” is dead, calling for a complete overhaul of marketing, in which brand managers are replaced by “brand advocates.”

Consumers and companies have always co-owned their brands. Remove either the company or the consumers from the equation and the brand ceases to exist. Brand managers simply manage the relationship, by managing expectations. So, what’s changed?

In the past companies promised a targeted audience a specific benefit. A relevant and compelling message prompted consumers to try a given brand. If the brand delivered on it’s promise, the brand succeeded. If that brand failed to keep its promise, failed to stay relevant, it failed in the market.

Today, the same rules apply. Yet, word-of-mouth is amplified through social media channels. This has allowed consumers to publish their own views. Either exalting or condemning a brand and often making promises on the brand’s behalf. This doesn’t mean that companies are no longer in control. The balance may be shifting. Whether in Print, Radio, TV, Internet, Mobile or Social Media, the formula remains the same. Companies and consumers share control, just as they always have.

In the past few years we’ve seen a radical shift as consumers now have the ability to converse with one another within a broad, yet highly focused digital world. Email, Facebook, twitter and a plethora of forums have provided the opportunity for consumers to share with one another and for brands to speak with consumers, not merely at them. This doesn’t mean that companies should surrender control. Companies now have yet another channel to manage consumers’ expectations.

In fact, innovative brands such as Apple, BMW and LG can’t surrender control without loosing their leadership positions. They understand that the customer doesn’t always know what they want until it is presented.

The basic building blocks of differentiation, relevance and authenticity haven’t changed. Social media simply amplifies the gap between those who understand how to connect with consumers and those who don’t.

What if consumers were calling the shots, creating the products and managing brands? Would we see revolution, evolution or outright destruction? What are your thoughts?

“If I had asked consumers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.”—Henry Ford

Contrary to what some believe, Santa Claus was not created by the Coca-Cola Company, but rather was a combination of many myths and legends, cultures and influences.

Snopes confirms that the myth is just that. However, in the spirit of the holiday we have provided a brief history of Jolly Old St Nick.

The American version of Santa Claus was brought to New York by 17th century Dutch settlers. They called him “Sinter Klaas.” The name “St. A Claus” appeared in the American press as early as 1773. But it was Washington Irving who, in 1809, first popularized Saint Nicholas with his History of New York, published under the pseudonym Diedrich Knickerbocker. Irving described a Claus who rode horseback and arrived each “Eve of Saint Nicholas.” Fourteen years later Clement Clarke Moore penned The Night Before Christmas and gave solidity to the tale with names for reindeer, a distinctive laugh and winks, as well as the famous “lays his finger aside of his nose” (taken directly from Irving’s 1809 description).

As descriptive as their words were, no images adorned their pages, and so, Irving and Moore left the reader great latitude to interpret the likeness of father Christmas. Crafting Santa’s likeness would be the task of illustrator Thomas Nast, who from the 1860s through the 1880s illustrated the covers of the Harper’s Weekly Christmas issues, as pictured here. Adding such details as Santa’s North Pole workshop and his list of children naughty and nice, Nast depicted a rotund, human-sized Santa Claus, rather than the elf of Moore’s poem.

Then in 1931, Illustrator Haddon Sundblom created a series of Santa Claus ads for Coca-Cola. Sundblom’s Santa image would be an updated, slightly more modern version of the character created by Nast. The popular magazine and billboard ads help to establish Santa’s grandfatherly image and standardize his Coca-Cola inspired red and white attire as well as the red and green color scheme we now associate with Christmas. However, as we can see by this timeline, the legend of a Coca-Cola created Santa is far from true. Coca-Cola played a large part in crafting our view of Santa, yet different customs from all over the Northern Hemisphere have come together over the years to create the jolly white bearded man.

Oh, and his shiny, red-nosed reindeer friend Rudolph? He was invented in 1939 by an advertising writer for the Montgomery Ward Company.

Merry Christmas to all.

Marketing and finance don’t always see eye to eye on the subject of branding (or should we say, the value of branding). Many creatives don’t fully understand the numbers and few finance people can quantify or qualify creative. These issues may stem from semantics, as each defines “value” quite differently.

Depending on whether you’re on the marketing side or the financial side of the business, branding is either viewed as an investment or as an expense. Those who see it as an expense, are unlikely to see returns, and those who can’t articulate the value that branding can bring are unlikely to attain a budget that is sufficient to carry out their claim. If your message isn’t being well received, it’s up to you to change the delivery—when talking to finance people, talk brand in financial terms.

For the purpose of this discussion, let’s avoid the higher level view of a brand being an experience, a promise, an expectation… and stick with a more pedestrian definition of brand:

A brand is both a marketing and legal device for differentiating goods and services. Where commodities are undifferentiated, interchangeable offerings (low margin), brands are considered unique and are legally protectable (high margin).

The above definition isn’t likely to receive a defensive response, because it defines brand as being the opposite of something financial people understand, a commodity. Now we can map that commodity and the brand, on a simple economic curve. This translates “brand” into economic terms, changing the question from “Does branding have value?” to “What is the value of X?”

So, while creatives may see brand as expressing unique and desirable benefits to a targeted audience to create preference, financial people see brand value as the premium consumers are willing to pay for a given product or service.

By aligning perspectives, marketing and finance can have the same conversation and determine appropriate budgets based on a common definition of brand and of success. After all, the differences are semantic. Both parties are essentially defining a commercially viable business as a high profit-to-cost ratio. The difference in viewpoint is how to get there.