Badge adds credence to products
By T. Uncle
When Toyota changed the corporate badge that appeared on all its automotive products some four years ago, it was not done at the whim of some high-flyers soaring somewhere high in the Japanese company's corporate structure.
The cost of altering a corporate logo is not something to be taken lightly: when Mazda altered its badging to the current winged symbol it uses today, it involved an investment of millions of dollars.
To have a quickly recognized brand symbol is seen as an important part of not only competing effectively in the commercial world, but also of adding credence to the entire range of products with which a particular brand may be associated.
There is possibly nothing more precious in this world of commodities than an easily recognized brand identity.
The value to a manufacturer of motorcars, clothing or food -- or a thousand of the other commodities or services that are a part of everyday life -- of a quickly recognized brand is almost immeasurable.
If, for example, McDonald's decided overnight to switch its familiar symbol for something entirely different, the effects would be instant and disastrous.
On the other hand, if a brand image is not effectively transmitting a desired message, a company will often make the decision to take the plunge into something entirely new.
The cost is not just in designing the new image: there is the huge cost of getting the buying public to recognize and accept the new symbol via advertising and marketing, plus the obvious expenses of changing a huge, in most cases worldwide, infrastructure with its showroom displays, stationery, uniforms -- plus an uncountable host of minor situations in which the design is utilized.
The measure of a successful corporate symbol is not just simple design, or the use of graphics spelling out the name: it is how quickly and positively it is linked to the product it represents.
Whether it uses graphics, or text, the symbol should be easily recognized from a distance and certainly not mistaken for another -- although, that said, in some cases a newcomer might unwittingly ape the design of an established competitor.
Recognition of a new corporate symbol does not happen overnight: it is part of a process that may take years before Toyota's luxury arm, Lexus, for example, calculated at the launch of its new car range in 1990 that something like 10 years would pass before the brand became an accepted player in its segment of the car market.
An easily recognizable symbol is something that sparks a sort of instinctive reaction on the part of a customer: if the symbol has the right connotations in the customer's mind, it could prompt an almost reflexive tendency to buy, or use the services offered.
The right image can instill feelings of confidence, or trust, in the customer's mind.
For example, the Mercedes-Benz three-pointed star is symbolic of the quality, precision and integrity of the brand.
The buyer knows a product bearing the Mercedes symbol embodies these qualities.
Also important -- and increasingly so in today's consumerism society -- is what the symbol says about the person who chooses to use the products adorned by it.
The Mercedes-Benz symbol is recognized at many levels of the social structure, including those unable to aspire to actual ownership of the product.
It is recognized as an expression not only of the user's discernment, but also of financial status.
For the buyer of a car wearing the familiar Ford blue oval, the symbol gives the feeling of being connected to a "family" of worldwide users.
In the case of BMW's spinning propeller symbol -- much less recognizable worldwide than the three-pointed star -- the message is more connected to the user's lifestyle than an ability to make a pragmatic, sound decision.
In this sense it is probably more connected to the "designer label" mentality rife in many countries.
Perhaps the whole designer label thing is taken to its most ludicrous extreme when it comes to relatively low-cost items.
The manufacturer of Oakley sunglasses for example once had the confidence in the power of its brand that it actually sold car- stickers bearing the trade-marked corporate logo -- a remarkable example of positively geared advertising.
And what are the most readily recognizable of the millions of corporate symbols used around the world? The top-10 list will probably not come as a surprise to most, although only two carmakers rate a mention: 1. Coca-Cola 2. Sony 3. Mercedes-Benz 4. Kodak 5. Walt Disney 6. Nestle 7. Toyota (prechange) 8. McDonald's 9. IBM 10. Pepsi Cola