Why a Top Quality Logo isn’t Enough to be Successful

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A logo is a small graphical element that has as main scope the representation of someone/something. This attempt of definition is preferable to the one provided by the Oxford Dictionary or Wikipedia because the main essence is synthesized. It’s simple: you instantly recognize an Apple product after the worldwide notorious logo. In the beginning, nobody figured out the importance of logo and many people consider its birth simultaneously or immediately after the invention of the Internet. Paradoxically, the history of logos is much older than some may believe. The Egyptians used to stamp their bricks in order to find out the origins and the date of fabrication and the archaeologist revealed that this method was taken also by Romans. Once with the development of Internet, the logos and their role simple exploded and nowadays we have an entire culture of logos. The paradox goes on, while a part of the people simply neglect its role and consider that a drawing can’t help their business, some have fallen to the other side,overestimating the logos. The wrong idea is that a well-done logo may assure good sales and a heavy traffic.

As everything in our life, balance is the key, therefore a logo is truly very important but it is part of a brand strategy and its value and success are strictly related to it. Definitely, there are certain aspects that are still unclear for many people, hence I have created this post to make everything clearer but I am also waiting for the contribution of the readers, feel free to use the comment form to share your thoughts.

1. A logo is a graphical element

It’s totally wrong to believe that a graphic realization is magical and can bring you enormous profits. A logo has the duty to make a connection between the owner and clients; you know that a car isa Mercedes because of the logo, but thinking objectively you aren’t sure of the quality. To be sure that it’s only to make people easily recognize the owner, look at the varieties of mediums where a logos used: it’s present on websites, on business cards, on banners, on covers, on clothes. Studies have demonstrated that it is more facile to remember a drawing than a complicated name of the company and this is another reason to have a cool, but simple logo.

Even for the specialists, the logo-brand separation is difficult to make but try a simple exercise: search on Logopond or any other online collection of logos for a beautiful one. Look at this for a few minutes or for how long you want, could you say something certain about its owner? I don’t think so…why?… becauseit is not a component of a branding strategy.

2. A logo is an important part of a brand strategy

Now let’s continue with the Mercedes example, the cool logo used can’t say anything about the reliability of the cars fabricated but the branding process across many years was a success and regular people have almost put the equal sign between Mercedes and quality.

The power of example is awesome (did you know that Cicero, the greatest orator wrote a book called “The power of example”): did you ask yourself why a lot of important companies are involved in various cultural or sports related projects where so much money are spent? Only for advertising…?
I am sure that advertising is very important but these are good occasions to cement the brand. A few months ago, in my country, Romania, Puma organized parties for young people in the greatest cities and good amounts of money were invested. It was a nice socialization between participants but everything was under the siege of the Puma’s logo. In this way the brand was associated with cool parties, appetizing drinks and our subconscious makes now the association Puma with good time. Let’s say that you must go to a big party, what T-shirt or shirt you will wear? I believe that Puma is considered a good solution, I am wrong?

To conclude, the branding attempt worked and I hope that this example clarified more the role of logo.

3. A good strategy of branding isn’t successful without quality

Unfortunately, to be successful isn’t enough to promote yourself, you have to create a powerful brand represented by an awesome logo. The missing term in this equation is capital and its name is: QUALITY.

Mercedes and Puma cannot resist in these days unless the quality of the products isn’t the best. Another evident example is Apple; their sales were over the expectations because of the quality of the products, no matter if the prices aren’t very friendly. The financial crisis demonstrated that quality is sometimes more important than the price and this should be the motto of all the entrepreneurs.

I really hope that this post was helpful in judging the value of logos and their roles in the success of the possessor. Even if the logo designers say that it is the key factor and marketers state that their solutions are capital, this item has an important role and also neglecting or overestimating it are bad conceptions.

Disclaimer: the brands foregoing are here as examples and not to be promoted. I based these examples on the popular opinions and there are no hidden meanings.

Header image courtesy of 123RF

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