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What I really think about when I think of logos

Filed in: Textbooks |  lessons learned |  Reviews & Summaries |  feedback |  LAUNCH | 
Posted on Thu, Jun 04, 2009, by Akira Morita

In the April LAUNCH session, we talked about logos##, and whether they’re something that’s integral to the marketing of small businesses.

Do we really need a professionally-designed logos from the get-go? What does that even mean, “professionally designed”? And, what does it do for your brand? Is a logo different from a brand?  Are logos, and the idea that they “represent you” overrated?

These are very important questions, especially for startups and small businesses. Something that should be answered with honesty and frankness. So while I have had my views known before in brief, and the LAUNCH session we had precipitated ample sage advice and useful points, I thought I’d elaborate on my view a little here, if just for posterity’s sake.

The Hype

So, everyone has heard some variant of this mantra: “Your logo is the first impression of your company to your prospects. You need to make it count.”  Here is some of the language found through a cursory search on the web:

“Logos represent the personality of business - first impressions count, so it is important that your business logo design is professionally designed. ” -www.magicdust.com.au

“As any successful business owner knows, the key to a profitable business is having the ability to create a unique and individual name. ... Perhaps the easiest way to create a unique name for a company is by creating a unique business logo. The business logo is a vital component of a brand’s name…” - http://www.ezinearticles.com

“Your brand is more than a series of words; it is your corporate identity. Your name and logo should tell people who have never been to your establishment something about you. Your brand should be strong enough to convey a message and a feeling in an instant. ” - http://www.expresso101.com

“The Internet is exploding with burgeoning companies, all vying for that killer logo design. Your image matters. Your logo speaks volumes. Your corporate identity has just a few seconds to impress prospects with your brand. Your logo design is priceless. Your logo designer is paramount to your success.” - http://www.logodesignguru.com

“Your business’s logo, marketing materials and website must stand out from the competition so that they can help you make a connection with potential clients and customers.”  - http://www.elf-design.com

Feeling overwhelmed yet? Aside from the confusing interchange of the terms “branding,”  “identity,” “names,” and “logos”, these are mostly benign truisms. Sure, logos are great. But do they really do all that? “The key to profitability”? “Paramount to your success”? Those are some strong claims.

While it goes without saying that A GOOD LOGO can help your business tremendously, the opposite is also true: A BAD LOGO can hurt your business.

And, what makes a good logo good? There’s a lot of gray area between the Great and Terrible Logos. And a lot of these kinds of judgments are subjective (Not a bad thing, actually. But we’ll come back to that below).

A case against catch-all branding

First thing first: a logo is not a brand. You don’t have a brand until you have customers, a unique service/product, and a clear message###.

Repeat after me: A LOGO IS NOT A BRAND.

Let’s ask a few questions:

• Do you know what makes your business unique, and utterly irresistible?
• Do you know who’s listening to you now, and whom you want to talk to?
• Do you have something to say, and can you say it clearly?

If you answered “no” to any of the above, you don’t need a logo, until you can answer “yes” to all three of them.

Think about it: the answers to these questions are what’s essential to controlling that “first impression.” No matter how great the logo designer you hire, and how much money you spend, without answering these questions, your logo will not help you create a good impression.

Why?

Say you need to dress up to go to this party. That’s rather hard to do, if you didn’t know what the party was, or had a good idea of what kind of outfit would make you look good and feel comfortable, too. The same dress/suit/jeans-and-a-tee outfit can look good or bad depending on TPO, and who you are.

Do you plonk down your hard-earned cash for some fancy designer clothes without knowing what you are buying them for, and whether they fit you? Should you even go shopping before finding out about the occasion and your size?

I didn’t think so.

Going at it without

If all this sounds like too much hard work up front, it is. But, does that mean you just can’t do anything until you figure it all out?

Not necessarily.

You can start right where you are. Go ahead, start talking to people about your business, and see what excites you most about what you tell them. Make some prototypes. Try things. If you already have a business and you are thinking about re-branding, you can start by asking your customers what they see in you that makes you special in their mind.

You might just have to try a few things before you can define your unique skills or attributes that makes your products great. That’s okay!

As for the logo: why not go without, really? “Oh, you will be buried in the sea of competition.” “How can your customers remember you?” I can hear the cacophony of fear-mongers, disguised as common-sense marketing advice.

Well.

The bad news? Unless you have a multi-billion-dollar budget, and/or your product is so essential to everyone’s life, the chances are you won’t be remembered by the majority of people, no matter what logo you have (or not).

What makes you stand out is your service. Products. What you can do well that no one else can the same way. Over time, these signatures that make you truly unique are what you build your brand around. After all, if everyone has a logo (and face it, unless you can justify the cost and time it takes to define what, who and how of your difference, yours will look very much similar to your competitors), how are you going to be noticed by having one?

DO IT YOURSELF

If you must have a logo, focus on getting some real thinking done around it. Spend as little as possible on the design (keep it simple, and you can probably come up with something decent on your own. That’s a topic for another workshop).

My one piece of advice, though: whatever logos you use (preliminary or not), make sure YOU like it. Don’t worry about what your spouse says. Take the opinion of your customers a little more seriously, but don’t just follow their advice blind, either. You have to use your logo, and stand behind it 100%. And repeatedly, too. So do yourself a favor and make it something that you love (and here’s why I recommend doing it yourself over hiring someone right out of college for cheap. And, conversely, why you should pay enough to feel you are getting something worthwhile, should you decide to hire someone).

And, as you begin to get to know and grow your business, don’t be afraid to grow your identity along with it. Go ahead, change the logo when you feel like it.

More companies change their look periodically than you might be led to believe. (Pepsi now has had 10 logos in its history, not counting the minor tweaks. Before you say that they are the loser of the Coke-Pepsi war, consider how much they make as a second-runner!) Even when you are in business for a long time, something can change from inside or outside the company that would change its brand strategy.

That’s life.

Changing world

But there’s one more thing.

The world of marketing for small businesses is changing.  Newspapers and magazines shutting down, TV and radio stations consolidating. In their place, blogs, social networking sites such as YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook are becoming more and more relevant (and important!) to your business.

The problem with these sites is that it’s hard to control your “branding” on them. Sure, you can post your messages, accompanied with the logos, “theme” or “skin” for your home/profile page and make it resemble your ads on the billboards. But, exercising these kinds of “control” measures over your presence in the social networks misses the point. Social networks are for connecting with people. Having conversations is what it’s about. Without the users’ contributions, it’s just plain billboards, and billboards are not engaging.

And, you can’t control what users will bring up in your conversations with them.

There lies the biggest challenge of branding in new media, and examples of failed attempts at control or missed connections abound.

What we should do in facing this challenge is a wholly another topic, but the point here is that “what your logo looks like” is decidedly not the most important thing in tackling the hurdle of how to get noticed in the new paradigm. As matter of fact, this logo-centric notion of branding inhibits your creativity and the strategic thinking that will really help you market your service and products in this changing world.

The dialogue continues (I hope!)

If you made it thus far, you must really be interested in this subject. I’d love to hear your thoughts! Please comment. I plan to post links to others’ views as well, so if you see another articles you like around this subject, too, I’d appreciate hearing about them.

##By “logo”, I mean anything that marks your business, from trademarks, icons, logotype, to corporate identities. These are, technically, all different, but I am talking about them generally.

###If you are interested in what I mean here, I’ve posted about my definition of branding here.