Mokokoma Mokhonoana || Graphic designer » Branding

Logos are dead (the postmortem)

Mokokoma Mokhonoana — Wed, 12 May 2010 14:25:02 +0000

“Logos are dead. And, logo designers are just being defensive and in denial, as this assertion sort of spell out an end to their livelihood.”

Talk about a kick in a logo designer’s baggy pants!

With the passing of each day, and browsing around the internet, I run into more and more “logo obituaries.”

While reading Buyology, a very insightful book on neuromarketing by Martin Lindstrom, I once again stumbled upon the assertion that “logos are dead.”

With this title, the author spends the book analyzing what makes people buy.

The author dedicated the fourth chapter of the book to subliminal advertising, and he discusses how companies selling cigarettes now rely on it to lure smokers, seeing that the government banned ads selling cigarettes.

Ironically, the ban (or rather: the reaction to it by cigarette brands) of cigarette advertisements seems way more profitable, to companies that sells cigarettes, than the return on investment that they saw from their advertising efforts before subliminal (and cigarettes) advertising was declared illegal.

Brief summary of the study:

A group of smokers were used to test the efficiency (or lack thereof) of subliminal advertisements.

From the study, the finding was that smokers respond profitably when a cigarette brand’s logo is not shown in their advertising. Aparently, the moment they see a brand’s logo, they see that as what it is, an ad, they deliberately ignore the ad.

That’s due to their conscious state of mind, which allows them to be rational.

However, smokers fell into the advertiser’s trap when the ads didn’t have the logo of the brand being sold. The advertisers strategically included things that they have, over time, built association to their brand around.

Malboro went as far as sponsoring Ferrari’s racing cars, after sometime, consumers have subconsciously associated “Ferrari Red” with that of Malboro. After that, a brain scan revealed that the sight of a Ferrari trigged whatever is responsible for a smoker craving a puff — all this is subconscious to the smoker.

So what the ads did was, not to sell the smokers smokes but, to trigger whatever is responsible for them to crave a cigarette, by merely showing something that the smokers have subconsciously associated with a particular of a cigarette brand.

Below is an extract from the study:

“In 1997, in preparation for the ban on tobacco advertising that was about to come into place in the United Kingdom, Silk Cut, a popular British tobacco brand, began to position its logo against a background of purple silk in every ad they ran.It didn’t take long for consumers to associate this plain swath of purple silk with the Silk Cut logo, and eventually with the brand itself.

So when advertising ban came into effect, and the logo was no longer permitted on ads or billboards, the company simply created highway billboards that didn’t say a word about Silk Cut or cigarettes but merely showcased the logo-free swaths of purple silk. And guess what? Shortly after, a research study revealed that an astonishing 98 percent of consumers identified those billboards as having something to do with Silk Cut, although most were unable to say exactly why.

In other words, the tobacco companies’ efforts to link “innocent images” — whether of the American West, purple silk, or sports cars — with smoking in our subconscious mind minds have paid off big time.”

(Martin Lindstrom’s conclusion)

“For companies, the logo is regarded as king, the be-all and end-all of advertising. But our study had just shown with what my research team assured me was 99 percent scientific certainty, the logo was, if not dead, then certainly on life support; that the thing we thought was most powerful in advertising was in fact the least so.”

Did the logo really lose its “magical” powers?

I think Martin is right. But, on a wrong expectation. A logo never had such power to sell, by simply dangling it in the eyes of consumers. And, it’s impossible to lose something you’ve never possessed.

A logo was, and should always be, used as a tool used by the owner to mark their products. That’s the most important responsibility of a logo.

Although, companies like Apple’s products can be identified with ease even with their logo out of sight, a logo is Apple’s way of saying “we made this,” which will attach whatever emotions and expectations you have in Apple’s products to any product that bears their logo itself.

In the context of branding, a logo will identify the brand it stands for, but it can never, at least solely, capture or communicate the entire brand story or philosophies.

What a vast number of people, like Martin, are expecting the logo to do is comparable to a job seeker expecting their identity (just the name – not their reputation) to sell them to the interviewer without them having to show their resume, their portfolio, or even utter a word.

The challenge is that an identity, verbal or visual, of a person or business, carries with it a reputation. But, what is supposed to make the sale is the reputation, memories, and experiences that a logo is meant to evoke, and not the logo itself.

Conclusion and a simple solution:

A logo is nothing but a visual brand name, and not a sales pitch. Furthermore, the term “logo” should be replaced with a more meaningful word.

A word that bespeak the role which the mark should be expected to fulfill.

In my next writing, I’ll explain and share what we as “logo designers” should do to move forward, and how colleagues like Andrew Sabatier are doing their bit to advocate branding led identities.

Related Writings:

A Lesson from the story behind the Lacoste logo

Mokokoma Mokhonoana — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 20:35:16 +0000

Lacoste, well-known for their polo shirts has a very brief, but quite interesting, story behind their widely known brand identity, that is made of a crocodile.

The company name derived from the surname of its founder, Rene Lacoste, a world renowned tennis player then.

Rene Lacoste was nicknamed the “crocodile” by the press after he made a bet with the captain of the French Davis Cup team. Apparently, Rene was promised a crocodile skin suitcase, something that was very important to the team, should he win the match.

Though he lost the match, the public stuck with the nickname “crocodile” and Rene then decided to have a crocodile embroidered on his blazer, which he wore to the court.

Fast forward to the time Rene had to get an identity for his business.

The crocodile was made part of Lacoste’s brand identity.

Though, it’s possible not to think of Lacoste when you see or hear of a crocodile. The crocodile inevitably comes to mind whenever you think of Lacoste.

So “technically” there is no meaning (but a story) behind the Lacoste logo, but it stands for something in the minds of the consumers. Some of you might argue that the story and meaning are one — nonetheless, both are not really about the brand itself but its founder.

At first the most prevalent thing that Lacoste brought to mind was “good quality polo shirts” but that was until they decided to add more products to their brand’s offering.

For that reason, to some people Lacoste stands for “fashionable footwear”, “uniquely scented fragrances”, “stylish handbags”, “elegant watches” and so forth but that’s another story.

The most important thing to take from this is that the brand gives meaning to the logo, and not the other way around.

I just found out about this and I thought this would be interesting to those that, like me, didn’t know the history behind Lacoste’s identity. Plus, this sort of support the points I made in the writing prior to this one.

And of course “crocodile” is likely to open an argument of its own as others would say that “It is not a crocodile but an alligator.”

Related Writings:

Psst! Meaningless logos too can get the job done

Mokokoma Mokhonoana — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 11:24:01 +0000

A brandmark designer’s priority is to develop an identity that visually differentiates brands, especially those competing for the same consumers.

Apart from form of an identity, colour is heavily relied on to communicate something or evoke a feeling about the brand the mark represents. The biggest challenge for us, as brandmark designers, is that we don’t really have control as to what the colour red means to whoever is exposed to the brandmark.

Colour is a very subjective subject.

Apple’s logo gets the job done, whether people realize the meaning behind it or not.

The focus should be placed on how effectively does the logo express or at least fit a company’s desired brand image not on which colour can the designer use to communicate that the brand is “innovative.”

At times creative rationales behind logos are misused by brandmark designers as a tool to give clients an impression that the designer deserve the amount of zeros on their invoices.

The story behind a brand, what they do and/or how they wish to be perceived usually shapes the look and feel of the brandmark but this isn’t really a must do. The brandmark will give meaning or attach experiences with the brand to the brandmark, and not the other way around.

That’s whole point of having a brandmark; identify and call experiences to mind.

How useful is the green on a brandmark, if consumers aren’t getting the fact that it is intended to communicate “growth?” Anyways which brand isn’t in pursuit of growth?

The challenge is that offerings and aspirations of most brands are common. Aiming to articulate them in a logo often leads to monotonous brand identities.

As much as this is not what we’d like to hear as brandmark designers, consumers don’t really care about what we’re communicating with the logo. People use logos to identify brands, they don’t seek the brand’s history or philosophies that should supposedly be incorporated within a logo.

A professional will of course have the wisdom to know which rules to follow. Things like relevance, scaling without losing detail, working well in one colour and so forth.

The fedEx logo worked very well, some people still fail to see the arrow in created by the negative space, but the brandmark still does it’s job well.

More important than a logo having meaning, is finding a look and feel that has the tone that fits the desired brand image, brand message etc.

Great design is useless in this context if it doesn’t have any brand strategy behind. And on the other hand, a great brand strategy is easily suffocated by bad design.

It’s the uniqueness and relevance that makes a logo, not the meaning behind it.

It is the brand that will give meaning to the brandmark.

Related Writings:

Between ethics and daily bread: A creative’s moral dilemma

Mokokoma Mokhonoana — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:12:40 +0000

The “creatives” umbrella covers a lot more that the following, but in this writing it will primarily refer and apply to graphic designers, art directors, copywriters, and photographers.

Regardless of how one decides to look at it, creatives are in the business of selling. Be it a product, service, idea, message, point of view or belief.

The food chain financial chain is rather straightfoward.

The creative employs their expertise with a objective of, in almost all cases, increasing a company’s bottom line. The company is then an x amount of (enter your currency here) poorer, while the creative’s bank balance realizes an increment of the very same amount of money — basic rule of economics.

In the context of branding, marketing and advertising, businesses are the main sponsors of creatives’ talent, be it as a team (agency) or on a personal capacity.

Entrepreneurs spot needs that are common amongst a large number of people (consumers) and then they work on means to fulfill those needs or as some may call it to fill in ‘the gap.’ That’s how businesses most business were born. And the bottom line is that businesses exist to make profit, by offering a product that’s in need or demand.

Some products are ‘needs’ while others are ‘wants’ painted as needs.

In 1964, a group of creatives gathered together and First thing First 2000 manifesto came to being. Creatives were demanding a more meaningful and socially useful usage of their expertise and imagination, instead of what they’re be hired to sell: cat food, toothpaste, cigarettes, aftershave, sliming diets etc. I totally agree with the concerns, I mean people with very little or no education have changed the world and here we have schooled people used only to sell a can of air freshener.

I’ve also came around writings by fellow colleagues questioning the moral obligations that creatives are (or should) be dealing with.

I’m writings this as both a creative and a so-called consumer, so I’ll try to be as neutral as possible.

Some people view businesses as huge evil monsters and, like with other things, there are those with conversing opinions.

The art of persuasion predominately use psychology and it is the biggest tool used in luring people in to buying things, mostly things they don’t really need, esp. in advertising. With just a few seconds of air play, an ad can leave you feeling like a failure, unattractive, a not-so-cool piece of flesh and a nightmare to the opposite sex.

Think of this type of advertising as peer pressure from ‘peers’ who like you for the depth of your pocket, not who you are.

Now this is where the questioning of morality should come into place.

Is it morally wrong to exploit human desires? The answer to that will depend on your beliefs. And since the subject matter is subjective, do we continue forcing our take down the other person’s throat or do we excuse the morally right or wrong debate and argue based on the law of the land, if we are to conclude the argument fairly?

Is it illegal for advertisers to exploit people’s insecurities and desires?

And let’s be fair enough to acknowledge that even campaigns with a good social cause make use of psychology.

How many times have you donated money simply because someone ensured that you’d feel inhuman should you have not?

As creatives we feel that our expertise should be utilized to create cultural and social projects like: street (and buildings) signs, books, catalogues, instructional manuals, educations aids, films and television features and the likes.

I applaud the creatives behind the First Thing First Manifesto for being wo/men enough to stand up against the hands that feeds them.

But let’s be objective for a second, apart from the street signs, all other projects that the manifesto demand creatives’ expertise to be used on are in one way or another selling something.

Books are not free: someone has to pay for the writers, printers and distributers. Someone will have to sell those books. Catalogues: showcasing what? Instructional manuals: whatever that the manual is intended to help the user operate is unlikely to be free.

You can argue that the instructional manuals are for educational purposes and that the education is free, but even if education was free… education equips people with skills so they can go work for profit seeking corporations — ultimately something needs to be sold to someone.

The human race faces natural disasters, crime, rape, women and child abuse, global warming etc.

Such challenges could be what we as creatives focus our energy on as suggested by the manifesto. As ‘human’ as it sounds, reality is that a living needs to be made.

Again, for one to earn, something must be sold. Skills are designed to enable one to partake in the jungle of economics.

Graphic design is also a commercial art. And in that context, it’s perpetuation is dependent on clients who has something to sell.

The challenge is that the answering to a brief is how most creatives make a living. Emphasis being on answering, and not choosing which briefs to answer to.

Are all businesses that sell to consumers evil? And isn’t the selling that qualifies an organization as a business? If so, are we as creatives also evil because in someway those businesses are our consumers? Are we less evil because our products are intangible, because we’re less manipulative in attracting our clients to hire us or is it because after work we go home and help those we’re hired to lure consume the advertising?

What is immoral? and whose definition do we judge against? The seller or those sold to?

Is the exploitation of human needs and desires an art to be celebrated or something to be ashamed of?

Is “making a living” and “financial security” dangled to creatives so they unconsciously play puppet to the so-called evil corporations?

Is the “business world” bigger than creatives? And how feasible is the “anti-selling silly things like cat food” ideology?

This reminds me of a line in some movie where a bank robber asked a bank teller “do you want to be a dead hero or live coward?”

Related Writings:

Traditional graphic designers, endangered species of modern day

Mokokoma Mokhonoana — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 13:01:40 +0000

In the beginning businesswo/men created products and services, but unfortunately, on the seventh day they couldn’t rest.

They had to find means to sell their products.

And at the core of the tools employed to move their products off the shelves, lied the expertise to; attract attention, present content and to persuade, using visuals — the bread-and-butter of a graphic designer.

Amongst other disciplines, design was used and products moved.

As times progressed, the number of businesses competing for the same customers increased, immensely. Prior to that, a company would win a sale purely based on proximity or price. Until these two ‘USP’ lost their effectiveness, as more and more businesses got easily accessible and a lot cheaper.

It then became very hard for companies to preach a valid reason as to why a customer’s sale should fall on their side of the fence. Out of that inevitable business challenge was born a discipline that now rewards those that invest in it, branding.

Branding gives people reasons other than price and proximity, to buy from company x instead of company y and company z.

Graphic design played, and still do, a critical role in moving products off the shelves. Through their expertise, graphic designers created things like logos for products identification, packaging and marketing materials to help sell the products.

Before branding gained momentum as a discipline, graphic designers where only required to focus solely on layout, typography, colour reproduction ect. But things have changed and approaching graphic design with a mindset of yesteryears prove futile.

Today, consumers people’s purchasing and choice of brands are driven by branding not design.

Though, thingss like a product’s packaging can attract a prospect buyer’s attention, it’s rare that the person would buy the product because of the great use and choice of typography and colours on the package.

Graphic design that is solely focused on the beauty of the layout is becoming more and more useless for businesses, esp. those whose competitors have a sound branding strategy in place.

This only means one thing, the creators of such designs pretty pictures’ days are numbered. Not that I’m trying to play prophet, but, in this day and age markets dictates that graphic design be driven by a branding strategy.

Graphic design is not only required to communicate and present content, it is now also expected, through branding know-how, to articulate brands.

Without branding and a brand strategy at the core of a business/plan, graphic design is nothing but meaningless decoration.

The ignorance of branding was shown by the vast number of graphic designers whose criticism on Pick ‘n Pay‘s rebranding efforts, was solely focused on the beauty (or lack thereof) of the brand visual identity.

It was hard to come by commentary that mentioned (whether praise or criticism) the marriage between Pick ‘n Pay’s new branding strategy and their attempt to articulate the strategy visually, through design.

In the context of consumer goods, graphic design that isn’t backed with a solid brand strategy is fruitless.

(By the way, rebranding goes way deeper than just redesigning a logo.)

Related Writings:

A Guide to the Business of Creativity [free eBook download]

Mokokoma Mokhonoana — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 07:41:19 +0000

As I promised, I’d love to share a book that covers the issues that I discussed in the prior post. I strongly believe that this book will be an invaluable read not just to graphic designers but anybody in the creative industry.

The book is authored by David Parrish and it’s titled T-shirts and Suits, A guide to the business of creativity. I must admit the name sounds a bit ridiculous at first but there’s a logical reason behind the title — T-shirts being a symbolism of creativity while suits symbolizes the business side (of creativity).

The author covers issues like creating financial security, intellectual property, management and leadership, marketing to name a few that are crucial to creating and sustaining a profiable creative business.

I think this is a must read for all creatives, my favourite section being, the part that we as creatives seem to overlook — creating financial security through protection and usage of intellectual property. This is a stream of income that will still flow even when you’re asleep, as it is not dependent on continuous labour.

Download Free eBook [1.9mb, pdf] or Buy a hardcopy of the book.

Further more, David Parrish runs a blog that contains new information, ideas and examples for creative people who want to make their businesses and organisations even more successful.

Please do me one favour, share this with any creatives that you know — knowledge grows when it is shared.

The more knowledgeable creatives are, the better for the creative industry and clients that we serve, so do share.

Related Writings:

Is a sale too complex to measure ROI on design, accurately?

Mokokoma Mokhonoana — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:30:17 +0000

If most prospect design clients share the same sentiment, with Tom De Marco, that “you can’t control what you can’t measure,” then it’s inevitable that most will believe that investing in professional design is not that much of a necessity.

One of the hardest (and in most cases, impossible) thing to measure, accurately, is the Return On Invest made on design — be it graphic design, website design, user experience, User Interface, Product design, et cetera.

This makes it very difficult for designers to sell design to prospects. It’s much easier to sell something if you can show or provide tangible proof or results.

To overcome this challenge, companies that sell lose-weight-without-a-sweat products rely on Before-and-After pictures to build credibility and ultimately motivate consumers to make a sale.

I’ve never been a woman, duh!, but I heard that the way a guy presents himself counts, big time. The “presentation” is mostly made up by the way the guy is dressed and groomed. Let’s create a scene.

We have some guy walking in a mall. And, Bang.

He sees a good looking chick, a potential daughter-in-law to his mom.

He makes a move. She ends up telling him her name.

From that scenario, it’s unlikely that the guy will know what exactly made the woman give him her attention and a chance for him to promise her heaven-and-earth.

Fast Forward. The guy and the woman are now dating.

Do we credit the way the guy was dressed?, the guy’s looks or the “your father must be a terrorist, ‘cos you’re the bomb!” lame pickup line that he used?

Can it also be possible that the emotional state that the guy found the woman in, made a contribution? maybe she was just tired of being lonely?

If the guy is interested in having as many women as he can get, and say he knew that he won all of his ten girlfriends’ hearts ‘cos of the way he dresses — isn’t it obvious that he’ll invest more time and money into his attire instead of wasting time brainstorming and memorizing cheap pickup lines, as for him they bear no fruits.

This is a very simple, some may even find it silly, analogy but I believe it’s effective in supporting the points I am trying to raise with this post.

Let’s get back to business. (business, ROI and design, that is.)

This is how difficult it is, for a seller to know exactly what made the biggest impact in getting a sale.

When a consumer buys a tooth paste from, say, Colgate, can we really measure what pushed the consumer to choose their product? Could it have been the TV ads that they’ve been constantly fed? Or was it Colgate’s slick new packaging?

Maybe that the consumer grew up in a household that used Colgate’s toothpaste religiously? Or was it that Pick n Pay had an irresistible discount on the product that day? Or maybe, just maybe, Colgate was the only brand in stock at the time the consumer made their shopping?

Or better still, Colgate was wise enough to pay a premium for their product to be shelved on the “eye level” shelves, which is regarded as the most selling shelve space? Or the product, toothpaste, is just a great product on its own?

A sale process is simple, a consumer just select a product and then pay for it, right? Yes and No.

Yes that’s a simple procedure. And No, as the selecting or choosing a product part is complicated — that’s where design (plus branding, marketing, sales etc.) plays a huge role.

After a consumer acknowledges their need for a product, they have to make a choice from hundreds (and sometimes, thousands) of brands offering the same product. Let’s make it more intense. Brands competing for the same wallets.

This is a stage where companies rely on branding, sales, marketing, design, etc to make the actual product appealing to consumers.

It usually takes more that one discipline to sell a product or service.

I guess that’s what makes it even harder to measure returns from an investment made on design.

When great packaging attracts a consumer’s attention plus instill trust, and then, the consumer ends up buying the product.

What gets the pat on the back, design or the store manager for offering a 25% off discount.

Design does not exist in isolation. And usually when it contributes, usually the most, to a consumer making a sale, disciplines such as advertising, sales and marketing are usually praised.

Seth Godin, a marketing expert, mentioned “Marketers take a lot of credit, because marketing is near the end of the game.”

If it’s this hard (or impossible) to tell which discipline pushed a consumer to make a sale, how possible is measuring ROI — made on design?

Related Writings:

How Avis made the best of — not being the best

Mokokoma Mokhonoana — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 09:46:35 +0000

We all want to be known as the first, best, or biggest — don’t we? If someone has already been labeled that before us, what do we do? We work hard, in trying to overtake them.

Well not Avis. Instead, Avis searched for a silver lining in the cloud they found themselves in.

Avis admitted that Hertz was the first car rental company in the world, and consumers were aware of that too. This positioned Hertz as a market leader in the minds of those that matters the most, consumers.

Your typical competitor would have not hesitated but spend all their marketing efforts on trying to overtake Hertz to take their number one spot in the minds of consumers.

Avis instead decided to look for a reason to appear better than Hertz without looking ‘bigger’ than them. Avis decided to publicly acknowledge Hertz as number one and proclaim that their company was second. This was not an easy task as publicly referring to themselves as No.2 could lead to consumers thinking their service is second-best.

Avis then explored opportunities and competitive advantages of being second best, which led to their famous slogan: “we try harder.”

Their slogan is effective because it’s simple, meaningful, memorable.

Avis promised to please even more than the leader, Hertz. And people responded positively to Avis’s sincere desire to please.

Take a look at the execution of Avis’s brand positioning strategy below:

Their initial ad campaign had what most called the most famous last line in advertising history:

“The line at our counters is shorter.”

I really enjoyed reading about Avis and how it positioned themselves — and It would have been ‘greedy’ of me not to share this with you, especially those who weren’t familiar with Avis’ brand positioning strategy.

The power is in their simplicity, I doubt there’s any “comeback” that Hertz can do that will stick in the minds of consumers like Avis’s brand positioning.

This is brilliant!

Related Writings:

Is humour the new sex in advertising?

Mokokoma Mokhonoana — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 09:23:59 +0000

I’m not sure if I am alone on this one, but whenever I watch TV most of the ads I see tend to aim at leaving the viewers laughing more than anything else.

Sex has been employed in advertising since the beginning of advertising. It has been predominantly used to draw attention to a product, with a goal to make a sale.

The sexual imagery used usually has no connection to the product advertised.

While listening to the Metro FM’s Breakfast Show a couple of weeks back, the DJ asked the listeners to call-in and share their faviourite (currently on-air) adverts. All of the adverts the listeners mentioned as their favourites were ads that had a some sort of a ‘punch line’ at the end.

Most of the callers couldn’t stop giggling while they were sharing their favourites with other listeners.

It’s clear that the ads made it to the viewers ‘faviourites list’ simply because they made them laugh. The same kind of adverts resurrect whenever ‘cool’ adverts become part of the conversation whenever I converse with friends, family and complete strangers.

Before labeling an ad as a success, does the advertiser and the ad’s intended audience judge the ad on the same audience (re)action?

Some ads even managed to make me laugh so hard that I’d be in tears. But, I have never bought and I doubt I’ll ever buy most of the products that were being advertised, though I fall within the advertiser’s targeted market. KFC also has some funny TV ads, again most make me laugh until my poor t-shirt drowns in my tears. However, the disturbing thing is that I really don’t remember or even have noticed which of their product range was advertised.

Most ads have some sort of ‘story or play’ happening for 99% of the time and then only get to say, name or show the product being sold at the last 2 seconds of the ad.

The product usually loses the spotlight to the ‘joke’.

I have a friend named Tshepho, almost all the time we watch TV together and an ad he liked just went by, he’ll go “tjo, ah advert yela e blind san!” (wow, that ad is a killer man). And most of the times I can tell when he is about to say his ‘phrase of approval’ before he even utters a word.

Why? Because he’d already be laughing like there’s no tomorrow, occasionally with a round of applause.

I know that with the countless number of marketing messages we consume daily, an ad that seriously made me laugh is likely to stay in my already over-populated mind for some time to come, while some ads never get to part ways with my memory.

People really do fall in love with ads; my dad would at times shout my younger brother’s name, just calling him to come see his favourite ad. But does that translate into a sale or at least a brand building exercise that might be a sale someday?

Do consumers really make their final buying decision based on who made them laugh the most?

The biggest contrast between sex and humour in advertising is that sex is mainly used to attract audience to the ad, while humour is only exercised after the ad has attracted the viewers’ attention.

Is there any logical reasons for advertisers to play comedians?

Related Writings:

Can a brand really ‘own’ a certain colour?

Mokokoma Mokhonoana — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 08:17:44 +0000

Colour plays a big role in visual communications (signs, typography, drawing, graphic design, illustration), there are emotional connections that are personal to each colour we see. For almost all brands colour application only initiates during the development of their logo design, and then the colour/s used will be applied consistently to their marketing collaterals.

In logo design, colour also plays a huge role in assisting consumers in remembering and identifying a brand. The acknowledgment of the prior point gave birth to the idea of brands aiming to ‘own’ a colour – as one of a brand’s highest priority.

Quickly. Think of the colour Red.

Chances are you just did that thought of red, just the colour red, and maybe whatever associations that you personally have attached to the colour.

Now. Think of Coca-Cola.

I’d like to be forward and assume that most of you thought of Coke, the colour red and then whatever associations you might have with the brand.

When you think Coca-Cola the colour red accompanies your thought but when you think of the colour red, you don’t necessarily think of Coca-Cola. Why you may ask? Because a brand can’t really ‘own’ a colour, the closest it can get to owning a colour is to have a certain colour associated with them in the minds of consumers.

Having strong associations with a certain colour becomes more crucial when coming to brands competing in the same sector or industry.

If you show the colour below to an average person, a South African in this case and ask what brand comes to their mind, I’m sure their answers will differ.

But If you gave the very same colour and asked what brand in the banking sector comes to mind, most will probably answer: Absa Bank. Even though the values of the red differs, if you asked the same question but asked for a beverage brand, Coca Cola will probably be one of the brands that comes to most consumers’ minds.

Hold on to that thought, think of the same (banking) sector and replace the red with green. Nedbank will likely come to your mind.

Same sector again, but this time with the colour blue? Aha, Inspired. Motivated. Involved - Standard Bank!

The four above brands have built associations in consumers’ minds to these colours through one of branding’s golden rules, consistency.

It is most brands’ dream to ‘own’ a colour, more especially in their sector/industry of trade.

Cadbury even went as far as trying to register the colour purple as their trademark, after its dispute with Darrell Lea in relation to the latter’s usage of the colour purple on one of its products. But Cadbury lost the latest ’round’, The Federal Court of Australia ruled that Darrell Lea had not ‘passed off’ its products as those of Cadbury’s, or breached the Trade Practices Act by selling chocolates in purple packaging.

The judge said he was not satisfied that Darrell Lea’s use of the purple packaging “has resulted, or would result, in a hypothetical ordinary and reasonable member of the class constituted by prospective purchasers of chocolate being misled or deceived.”

While colour on a logo and the over all brand identity is usually used to communicate a message, brands sometimes sacrifices a colour that communicates their message best for another ‘competitor-free’ colour, simply because there’s an existing competitor already using the colour.

In respect to competition, colour is mainly used to differentiate a brand from its competitors rather than communicate.

Brands can only ‘own’ consumers’ associations with a particular colour to their brand, not the colour itself.

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