Can a good logo make your customers buy your product? Or buy more of it?
Last year, the Journal of Consumer Research published an interesting study. The researchers set out to measure whether or not a logo could influence the behavior of customers. They also looked at the effects of business ad slogans on customer behavior.
Logo design versus ad slogans
What they found was interesting: logos unconsciously trigger “brand compliant” behaviors, while ad slogans appear to trigger resistance.
In other words, people tend to ignore slogans because we understand they are sales messages. But for some reason, logos don’t have the same effect. It’s as if the brain “sees” a logo as neutral and processes the branding message without resisting.
So customers who were shown a Walmart logo before shopping spent less money in a shopping experiment while customers who were shown a Nordstrom logo spent more.
Fascinating!
A similar study published in 2008 showed that customers who were shown an Apple logo before being asked to do a brainstorming task, performed more creatively than customers who were shown a logo for IBM.
How your business logo subconsciously markets your brand
Logos can affect our behavior—even though when we think we are immune to advertising.
What does that mean for your logo?
Over time, as you develop a consistent brand message, your customers may unconsciously respond to that message each time they interact with you. The more positive the brand associations, the better for your business.
Need a good logo? Our free logo design tool can help get you started.
