What's Black and White, but NOT Read All Over? Logos.

As usual, this blog post was inspired by a recent conversation with a friend. We were talking about a logo and briefly considered using it as part of a tag-line for a class project. We quickly realized that it wouldn't work because no one would actually read the logo; they would look at it, observe which brand is associated with it, and then read the copy.

With all of the logo-changing craziness that has been going on recently, this got me thinking. Obviously the use of a logo is critical to a brand. It establishes that omnipresent "look and feel", constantly connecting the brand and its executions, no matter what. That's why changing a logo is so risky; it is printed everywhere, on everything that is an extension of the brand. And if the logo doesn't truly represent what the brand stands for, it could be disastrous.

However, despite the importance of the logo, no one actually reads it.

The Walt Disney logo, for example, has been accepted by generation after generation. Everyone knows what the logo looks like and what it is associated with, but a lot of people have a difficult time realizing how the "D" in "Disney" is actually formed. Doesn't it seem like being able to read the name of the brand would be vital to its success? Apparently not. Even after people recognize how the "D" is shaped, they still have to work to see it. I believe that, for the most part, they will just look past it, take in the whole logo and know what it means.

This realization made me think about Starbuck's recent logo change, in which they removed all text. At first, I thought this was kind of dumb. I understand that they want to expand their product line to include more than just coffee, but I always thought, "Ok, so just take the word 'coffee' off the logo, but leave the word 'Starbucks'." Now, I think it was a brilliant idea. The only people that would actually take the time to read the logo would be those who are unfamiliar with the brand and/or their logo. Also, because the logo image is essentially the same, it isn't unrecognizable to the brand's loyal followers. Without the words, Starbucks will be able to stamp that previously mentioned, omnipresent brand voice on every product they choose to create, simply branding it as "Starbucks," not as "coffee".

This could also be one of the many reasons why the Gap logo redesign was a complete failure. Even though the text of the logo was exactly the same, it didn't matter. Because no one bothers to actually read it, the only thing that mattered was how the logo looked. Gap (momentarily) decided to completely abandon its iconic design and go with something that did not seem to be a good representation of the brand, and the brand's followers were not happy.

Anyways, I'm sure you've all read enough about these two logo makeovers to want to read anymore, but I thought I'd open up a (hopefully) new school of thought....Logos are important, but what they say is not a huge contributing factor to their success.

Not all Target Markets are Created Equal

As marketers, we like to categorize people into groups: Gen X, Baby-boomers, married, single, multi-cultural, etc. For the most part, putting people into these categories makes our job easier. You are able to find out who is interested in your product, put a name to that group of people and put some ads in front of them.

Recently, however, I was in a situation that made me realize that there are large groups of people that don't fit into the typical categories that marketers use to target their products. That sentence might make me sound naive, but let me explain my story before you judge.

Over the holiday, I was playing Catchphrase with my sisters and cousins and I had to get them to say the word "Twitter." I described it as being "a popular social networking site...not Facebook." My younger sister was able to guess the word, but once I announced that Twitter was, in fact, the popular social networking site that I was referring to, my teenage cousin from kind of huffed...he thought it was ridiculous that I would refer to Twitter as a popular site. Sure, he's heard of it, and he uses social media (he's very active on Facebook and MySpace)...but Twitter? Not something that he would consider using.

That's fine, I know a lot of people who don't enjoy using Twitter, it's not as easy nor as interactive as Facebook...but all of those people would, undoubtedly, still consider the site to be immensely popular...or would they? If you are a high school boy that doesn't use Twitter, and none of your friends use Twitter, and the only people you know of who do use the site are famous-for-no-reason-celebrities and unreliable news channels, you probably wouldn't consider it to be popular.

Now, I'm not saying that marketers are incapable of finding and filling the holes within a target market...After all, I'm an advertiser and I discovered this little lapse of "Twitter acceptance." I'm just saying that it often becomes easy to group people into a category that seems to fit your product, but a good advertiser, a good planner, looks deeper than that.

Do you see what I see?

I'm sure that almost everyone has seen these images before. They're classic illusions: do you seen an old woman or a young woman? Do you see a rabbit or a duck?

If you stare at these illusions long enough, trying to decide how you want to categorize them in your mind (young or old? rabbit or duck?), you will eventually get a headache and stop looking at the pictures. Similarly, if a company is trying to force themselves into multiple categories in the consumer's mind, the customer will become confused and, possibly, form a negative opinion about the company or its products.

To avoid this confusion, a company must choose one category, one position, to hold in the consumer's mind. They can't be both a rabbit and a duck, they have to choose the one category that best suits them and truly own that positioning.

That's where advertising comes in. Even though the client can be seen as both a rabbit and a duck, research has found that the target market likes rabbits better because they're cuter. It is then the agency's job to figure out how to make consumers focus only on the rabbit. How can you get someone to look at that picture and only see the rabbit, not the duck?

That's the perpetual problem, and I love solving it.

Self-fulfilled

There is a very well known psychological theory called the "self-fulfilling prophecy". An over-simplified example of this theory is that if you think you are going to do poorly on an exam or in a sporting event, you will. The basic concept is that if you have an attitude or believe something about yourself, it will come true because you will either subconsciously or consciously take actions to make it come true.

For the most part, this theory refers to personal/inner thoughts and feelings fulfilling themselves in an outward manner...but I've recently noticed that this phenomenon can be more powerful if your self-related thoughts are made public. If you write something down, post something to the internet or tell a friend, I think your chances of self-fulfilling are much higher. Once you've consciously recognized that thought, or even shared it with others, your subconscious desire to fulfill it skyrockets.


I've noticed this even in myself. There is a section on Facebook located right underneath your profile picture that asks you to, very simply, "write something about yourself". This box is big enough only to host a sentence or two, so I felt that if I was going to write only one sentence about myself, it better be something good. I noticed that some of my friends had written things about their families, jobs, hobbies or quotes from famous people. So I did some thinking and web browsing to find something clever to "write about myself". Finally I decided on a quote I found that says, "I say luck is when an opportunity comes along, and you're prepared for it."


I've never said that quote aloud and I don't know if anyone has ever even read it in on my Facebook page...but ever since I put that "personal thought" about myself in a public place, I've noticed that more of my actions lead me towards fulfilling it. Because I chose to publicly associate that quote with my personal characteristics, I think that the self-fulfilling prophecy kicked into turbo-mode because if I didn't self-fulfill, I wouldn't be the only person to realize my "failure".

There you have it; my belief about the self-fulfilling prophecy: If you publicly announce something about yourself, your rate of self-fulfilling that sentiment is higher than if you were to keep it to yourself. Take it or leave it.

Technology and Culture

One day I was riding in the car with my parents and we were listening to XM Radio, "60's on 6". The station only plays songs that were released during the 1960's. I couldn't help but notice that my parents knew almost every song...and when they didn't know a song, they thought it was strange that they had never heard it before.

This made me wonder what songs XM Radio would play if they had a station that only played songs that were released between 2000 and 2010...and I quickly realized that there would probably be a lot of songs I wouldn't recognize. Right now, I have over 2,000 songs in my music library and I feel like that is a pretty average number. But, if you were to compare my library to a random person's, I bet we wouldn't have many of the same songs. Even though I love the music that I listen to just as much as the next person loves the music that they listen to, if we aren't listening to the same music, is it weakening our culture?

In 1965, music wasn't as available as it is today, at least not in such copious amounts...and it definitely was not as easy to store all in one place. While those may seem like negative things, I think it made that generation's cultural identity stronger.

The massive amounts of music, television, news and other kinds of culture we are exposed to on a daily basis is great; you can find a niche that you really love and immerse yourself in it. BUT, has the technology (MP3 players, DVRs, satellite radio, etc) that has enabled us to explore all of these options actually weakened the overall sense of commonality across our generation?

Connecting the Generational Gap

The weather this week has been beautiful here in Michigan! Abnormally warm for the end of March/beginning of April. It was like someone flipped the switch and turned spring on. As a result of all the great weather, there were so many new activities going on outside. It seemed like everyone was outside either playing corn hole, frisbee, or (the college-town favorite) beer pong. Everyone crawled out of their winter holes to take in the sun and enjoy the nice weather outside.

While I enjoyed seeing and participating some of these outside activities, there was one thing in particular that has really stuck out in my mind. Earlier this week, I was walking to class on campus and I noticed a father and son playing catch. Fairly typical, I know. But the interesting part was that the father was using a baseball glove and the son was using a lacrosse stick.

It is a very simple thing, but it really caught my attention. It made me think of a generational gap that this father and son were able to overcome in order to spend time together. Perhaps the father enjoys a more traditional baseball-style catch, while the son's interests lie in the more modern, newly popular lacrosse-style catch. It made me think that they were able to find a way to find a connection, a similarity, between the new and the old, the traditional and the modern, and they were able to use that connection to spend time together in a way that met the standards of both the father and the son.

I think there are so many other similarities between new and old that can be connected together to make a cohesive team and encompass multiple generations, just like this baseball glove/lacrosse stick example. The one thing I can think of off the top of my head is Facebook. While it was originally designed just for college students, it is now popular among a much older demographic as well. Here, the game of catch (or the common factor) is ease of communication. The ability to easily stay in touch with relatives and long-lost friends could be considered the baseball glove, while sharing your latest YouTube discovery or updating your friends on your spring break plans, would be the lacrosse stick.

I'd say, if we were able to find those connections in other products, and portray them that way to consumers, we'd have a pretty good way to expand the product's demographic to multiple generations.

Consumer Perspective

Advertising is at its best when it takes the consumer's point of view into account, anybody who is even remotely interested in advertising knows this...but it's much easier said than done. I've noticed some new campaigns that, in my opinion, speak directly to the target successfully and some that really fall short.

Last week, Kotex launched their U by Kotex campaign, which asks young women to help "Break the Cycle" of the taboo that surrounds the menstrual cycle. As soon as I heard of this idea, I loved it. I went to the site, I watched the videos, I took the polls. I did it all. And I was shocked at what I saw! One poll showed that the majority of young women didn't feel comfortable telling their friends when they were on their period...if you aren't going to talk to your friends about your period, you certainly aren't going to talk to many other people about it. Their first launched commercial serves as a parody of all other tampon/pad commercials, pointing out how those tradition commercials fantasize the realities of your menstrual cycle. Ahh, it was like a breath of fresh air! Thank you, Kotex and JWT for standing up for women, giving young girls an educational tool and helping break the cycle!

While the products that go along with this campaign don't seem extremely different from the traditional, the feeling and movement behind the campaign is what is going to sell. This is the best example I can think of of a campaign successfully talking directly to their target. It is what they want to hear, it is how they feel, but no one else has said it before.

However...some other brands really seem to be struggling to reach their consumers on that same level. Allstate just launched a website asking for media placement ideas to be submitted. Where's the strategy there? It's as if they are begging, "Hey everyone, tell us what to do because we don't know how to reach you!" Allstate has worked with Leo Burnett and Starcom for a while...if those two agencies can't help Allstate with a few successful media placements...I don't know how much luck they will have with this approach. I'm interested to see how it works for them and will definitely be following along to see what they decide.