Brand marketing and logo design are intrinsically interlinked. Brand marketing is supposed to invoke certain feelings within a consumer relating to the brand. These don’t pertain specifically to the product or the service. But they are related to the perception of the brand as sober, serious, fun, bubbly, stylish, etc.
The logo design of the brand and the way it evolves is analogous to that perception. As various brands have redesigned and updated their logos, even slightly, their brands have also evolved.
Here is how brand marketing and logo design work to complement each other.
What is Brand Marketing?
Brand marketing refers to the promotion of a company’s products and services through a unique style. This style can stem from the associations people hold with the product or service, or through a brand mascot.
Brand marketing allows customers and general consumers to create a perception of the brand in their minds. Brand marketing strives to link that perception to values, identity, and positivity. This, in essence, is a process intended to boost sales and popularity to increase profits.
What Is the Difference Between Branding and Marketing?
Marketing refers to the tools that are used to sell products and services. These include ad campaigns, sponsorships, festivals, events, etc. These are all intended to be channels through which people find out about the product or service. If the marketing does its job, most people that find out about the product or service purchase it.
However, branding is different. Branding tends to define what a product or service stands for. Perhaps it stands for quality, or ingenuity, or reliability, etc. Perhaps it stands for family values, or simply entertaining people. Branding tends to put associations in people’s minds and hearts about what a brand represents.
Hence, marketing is related to the tools used to sell, and branding is related to the perception of the product/service/company.
How Do I Promote Myself Offline?
Offline marketing, though slowly fading from your
What Is an Offline Marketing Strategy?
Offline marketing strategies refer to the use of traditional, non-internet related means for marketing. This includes traditional media like billboards, flyers, print ads, sponsored articles, outdoor advertising, etc.
Offline marketing also makes use of images and slogans as does online marketing. The difference is that with offline marketing, there are no links to follow or pop ups to open. There are much fewer chances of individual marketing with offline marketing. Hence, the logo design, advertisement, or slogan should be extremely persuasive and eye-catching to make an impact.
This strategy has been in use for over a century since the internet was only born about 30 years ago. However, it is fading from the public sphere rapidly as people turn increasingly to their own mobile devices for content.
Traditional, offline advertising is innately a collective medium. Hence, it is not meant to be concentrated to a single person. That is its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. With a single billboard or print ad or flyer, you may attract a thousand eyes. However, since offline advertising allows very little room for personalisation, you can’t market to specific individuals.
Some of the most common offline marketing strategies include:
- Business Cards: Business cards bear all the information that a client needs to contact you including your phone number, email, website, and social media handle.
- Billboards: Billboards contain catchy slogans, huge blow ups of advertisements, and can be seen by hundreds or thousands every day.
- Flyers: Flyers give the most information out of all the traditional offline marketing strategies. They give details about services and products, and the company’s history. They also give information about various discounts, memberships, locations, etc.
- Merchandise: Selling merchandise like T-shirts, pins, and bands to people is a great way to advertise. This allows brands to market through word of mouth.
- Banners and Signs: Banner and signs advertise your brand and/or company through a very traditional way. They’re huge signs that showcase your logo and slogan.
- Cards: Sending out seasonal cards to people that bear greetings and/or vouchers and discounts is a great offline marketing strategy. People are more likely to splurge during the holidays.
- Print Ads: Newspaper ads, though part of a fading industry, can still help your brand marketing in small urban or rural areas. They bear simple information about a single product or service and a phone number or website. These can help people contact you and inquire further.
What Are the Best Events for Marketing?
Here are some of the best events you can attend for offline marketing
- Speaking Engagements: Getting your best speakers to go to these engagements will allow you to boost perception. A single well-spoken PR rep can really change one person’s demeanor towards your brand and associate you with class.
- Trade Shows and Fairs: Trade shows and fairs that are laden with various companies’ booths are great opportunities for marketing. You can use trade shows and fairs to advertise new products, services, offers, etc. You can even hand out free samples, register new consumers, etc.
- Business Conferences: Business conferences allow you to meet with various clients in your own industry and beyond. This can allow you to form new business relationships and strengthen old ones. You can also network with new business clients at these conferences.
How Do You Market Logo Design?
Logo design is the identity of your brand. Pepsi and Coke, and Apple and Microsoft are undeniably recognisable by the vast majority of people. That’s the kind of brand presence that a company would love to have. However, that requires just as much effort in marketing as it does in logo design.
Gestalt Theory
There is a theory that is often used in logo design called the Gestalt theory. It states that the human mind puts together various shapes to extract meaning. People can form patterns out of objects that are shaped similarly. Objects that are incomplete can be filled in by people’s minds. This theory generally informs how people view different logos and brands.
What Are the Types of Brand Logos?
Depending on what design philosophy you subscribe to, there are 7 types of logos.
- Monograms
Monograms are very simple logos that bear a few letters, usually with a dual color scheme. These letters make up the generally known name of the company, which is a contraction. Examples include HBO, IBM, and NASA. Others include CNN, CBS, PBS, etc.
- Wordmarks
Wordmarks refer to logos that bear the exact name of the companies. These are logos that are designed around shaping the fonts and selecting the colors for the letters. Examples include the white letters of Coca Cola with a red background, and the multi-colored Google letters. More examples include VISA, and Disney.
- Pictorials
Pictorials refer to those logos which bear a resemblance to a clearly defined thing or animal or object. An example is the logo for Apple, which is a half-eaten apple. Other examples include the blue Twitter bird, and the red bullseye for Target.
- Abstracts
Abstracts are logos that don’t represent any commonly known shape. They can include logos from Pepsi, Adidas, or Microsoft. The logos, though instantly recognisable, don’t bear any clear resemblance to real world objects.
- Mascots
Mascot logos tend to feature the mascot of the company or the brand in the centre. This includes the logo of KFC featuring Colonel Sanders, or the Kool Aid Man. Others include Ronald McDonald, and the Frosties mascot, Tony the Tiger.
- Combinations
Combination logos tend to include text and pictorials as well. These include the Doritos logo which includes the shape of the chip as well as the name. It also includes Burger King in which the name is sandwiched between two burger buns.
- Emblems
Emblems are logos that resemble crests and badges and seals. These include the logo for Starbucks Coffee or Harley Davidson Motorcycles. These logos remind you of the emblems that you saw at your university or at old castles which represented noble families. These types of logos aren’t very common.
How to Design a Brand Logo?
Which shapes are the best for designing brand logos?
Studying the various shapes and sizes that logos come in, it’s not obvious which approach makes the most sense. However, certain shapes have been known to convey certain feelings and emotions.
- Circles, ellipses and ovals tend to give off a positive vibe. They can suggest community, friendship, even love. Rings have a relationship to marriage, stability, partnership, etc.
- Straight edged logos like squares and triangles suggest practical stability, and can imply balance. They also convey professionalism, and efficiency.
- Triangles have been known to convey power, science, religion, law, etc. They are viewed primarily to be masculine. Hence, the Doritos logo, or the Google Drive logo.
- Vertical lines are associated with masculinity, and aggression, and horizontal lines suggest community and peace.
- This carries over to the typeface that you choose for your logo. If the letters have jagged edges, they convey a more serious, formal tone. However, rounded, curvy typeface conveys an informal, youthful, and fun appeal.
Which font is best for logo design?
The best fonts for logo design can be determined by what the brand stands for. If the brand is serious and sober, then Helvetic or Proxima now can do just fine for it. They convey a sober stance and a professional demeanor. Usually, the more jagged the edges and thicker the text, the more professional the company.
However, if the brand wants to associate itself with fun and youthfulness, then a font like FF DIN is more suitable. Curved edges convey that the company doesn’t take itself too seriously and wants to see more inviting to the average consumer.
What Is a Good Logo?
There is no one right answer to this. Logo design is art as much as painting a picture or writing a slogan is. Most of the time, you won’t really know what will work. However, there are a few things that make a logo good.
- A Unique Design: Unique designs that don’t remind the consumer of anything else usually work for a brand. They establish a unique identity and don’t allow the customer to associate anything else with them.
- A Simple Design: A simple design ensures that consumers don’t have to think too hard about it. Logos like that of Pepsi or Apple are very simple and have become simpler through their iterations.
- An Expressive Design: Expressive designs intend to say just enough to the consumer. Microsoft’s four squares stand for professionalism, the Golden arches of McDonald’s stand for quality, etc.
- A Distinct Color Scheme: The color of a logo is just as important as its edges and shapes. Coke is known for its reds, Facebook for its blues, and Spotify for its greens.
Why Are Custom Brand Logos Important?
Custom brand logos carry an objective importance. Customising a logo serves to differentiate a company, product, or brand, from other competitors. This not only helps to identify it with certain values, themes, and philosophies, but with various people. For example, Microsoft will always be associated with Bill Gates, just as KFC will be with Colonel Sanders.
This is why certain brands and brand logos become benchmarks for people’s trust and loyalty. This is why they spend on one brand rather than the other.
In a Nutshell
Marketing and branding are both important in order for a company to flourish. These tools comprising of promotional events, advertising tools, and design aesthetics, shape a company’s image and boost sales and profits.
They are as necessary to a company’s success as blood is to a human being’s longevity and life. Without marketing and branding, consumer interest and loyalty eventually dissipates and the unique flavor of the brand disappears.
