If you were viewing your company’s brand on a distant billboard, would you recognize it? What about the NIKE logo or the Apple logo? You wouldn’t even need the name, just the symbol, right? How recognizable is your own brand?
Livestock branding has been used for thousands of years to identify cattle. In the early days of branding, ranchers would stamp a huge brand over most of the cow’s body to telegraph to others ranchers from a distance “Hey, this is my cow!”. This has since been replaced with a smaller brand, but the idea is still the same. It’s a way to identify what belongs to you.
Today branding is still a way to identify your company, through your logo, your name, your marketing, and even mascots. It’s the first thing people see about your company and it determines whether people want to do business with you or not. Customers are used to making split second decisions. And unless they’ve really had the time to get to know you, they will either decide to buy from you or keep looking. So you need to make your brand logo stand out from the crowd.
Here are 3 things to make your brand logo more recognizable:
- Colors – As someone who sells a promotional product and prints logos on them every day, I can tell you that you need to think about the impact of your logo on a hat, mug, T-shirt, or pen before you decide on the colors. Customers are surprised when they hear that their logo will cost extra with each color they print. And if you have more than 1 or 2 colors, that can get very expensive. Match the colors to your industry and what your company represents. It’s probably not a good idea to use green as a color for a water company.
- Mood – If you’re in a serious and somber business like the funeral industry, you probably want to stay away from a happy-go-lucky look. Unless, of course, you’re this company, who markets a no-frills cremation service in a different way.
- Simplicity – A logo that is too complicated is also too much for the brain to comprehend and is much less likely to be remembered. Again, I’ll also mention that you want a simple logo for your promotional products. A complicated logo on a pen or hat will quickly be ignored. Keep it as simple as you can, while still communicating exactly what your business does. A simple logo of a car with the words “Detail Dude”, tells us everything we need to know.
Customer’s attention spans are getting shorter and shorter. Make sure you are able to convey your brand message in the least amount of time, while also getting your point across in a memorable way. A simple and concise logo is the way to do it.
