Changing your logo isn’t the same as changing your brand

While most businesses place a lot of emphasis on their visual identity, many fail to realise that simply updating or refreshing their logo isn’t the same as changing the brand, writes uberbrand’s Dan Ratner.

Your brand is not a logo. A brand is defined as a perception that is held in peoples’ minds. That perception is formed and, potentially, altered based on experiences with the brand. Once these perceptions are in place, the logo becomes a physical embodiment of how the audience feels about that brand and what they believe the brand delivers.

Foxtel’s recent rebrand was met with mixed reactions

What you look like, say and do communicates something about who and what you are. When changing your logo, you are communicating change to your audience. It provides opportunities re-engage with people and even to start new conversations.

Consequently, when companies change their logo without changing anything else, it opens them up to risk. People form a relationship with a brand over time. The more the brand delivers on expectations, the more entrenched those expectations become. A new logo leads to new expectations. When the brand fails to deliver on the new expectations, customers can become confused, or at worst disenfranchised.

Be a member to keep reading

Join Mumbrella Pro to access the Mumbrella archive and read our premium analysis of everything under the media and marketing umbrella.

Become a member

Get the latest media and marketing industry news (and views) direct to your inbox.

Sign up to the free Mumbrella newsletter now.

"*" indicates required fields

 

SUBSCRIBE

Sign up to our free daily update to get the latest in media and marketing.