Would have liked to see some of the drawings.
4
Ridiculous article which could have been more interesting had a few 100+ year logos such as GE, Ford and Coca Cola been included. Regarding Fed Ex, next time you see it on one of the company's trucks, signs or uniforms, see if you can notice the almost subliminal arrow pointing right between the 'E' and the 'x.'
Hiding in plain sight!
3
A more useful test would have been to show people textless versions of various logos and have them name the company they represent. THAT would prove how well a logo functions. You're supposed to recognize it -- not replicate it.
What does it mean that I can't draw the covers of my favorite record albums? Nothing. Nothing at all.
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We do know, right?, that logo *recognition* is the goal, not detailed logo *recall*. This "test" is not testing logo recognition, which is what corporations pay the big bucks to have created. When someone passes a store that has the logo of an apple with a piece taken out of the upper right, they know they're at an Apple store and might want to walk right in or to head to that store with the four panes in a rectangular logo that's a few doors down. Fortunately, they do not have to draw the logo before they're allowed to enter the store.
8
This is funny. I realized after reading the article that I don't know and never did know what the Starbuck's logo is. The only ones I know are the McDonalds, Nike and Apple. Companies need to rethink their logos to make them simple and memorable.
This comes across as a silly experiment from the get-go. Most people cannot draw — or at least tell themselves they cannot, so thay can’t. Few have precise visual memory (ask any cop who has taken statements from witnesses at a crash scene). I am a visual person with an art degree and a skill for drawing, yet I’m not sure I could reproduce the Starbucks logo from memory. Even though I can see it in my mind. I know I would fail at The Domino’s logo, simply because I don’t like their product and do my best to shut out their ads (and all the logo-marked trucks and cars I see on the roads).
Logo recognition is what matters, but of almost equal importance are the associations the consumer has with that logo. If you have a negative opinion of a company or product, seeing and recognizing the logo just amplifies that antipathy. That’s true for me whenever I see the Nike swoosh.
4
The kind of pre-scientific marketing survey described in this little piece is basically silly. If people remember something as trivial as the logo of product, it's probably because they actually use the product, not the reverse.
1
I thought this was going to be an interesting story so I read the whole thing. What a waste of time. The only fun I am going to get out of it is posting this snarky comment about how utterly lame the study was. Why anyone thought this story was worth the column inches is a mystery to me.
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There is one type of memory that associated familiarity and emotion (ie, have I seen this before and does it elicit a subconscious emotional response based on past experience) and another for explicit recall (ie, can I recreate/recall it accurately from memory without cues). The first type of memory, I would argue, is all that is really important for branding.
6
I remember being shown a graphic in college that was essentially an illusion: the archetypal Coca-Cola logo had been redrawn in its white cursive on a red background, complete with the wave below, as Caco-Calo. I didn't catch the trick immediately because I was SO familiar with the brand. Remember "Wacky Packs" from the 1970s? The reason they're funny is specifically because of the familiarity of the brand being parodied. CREST toothpaste, for instance, becomes CRUST ("tastes lousy!") with the same font and different colors spelling the name. It seems to me, then, that the statistic these big businesses would be more interested in is not that 30% of participants in this study could redraw their logo from memory, but that 100% of participants knew the brand in the first place and could recognize it instantly.
13
A simple logo is good. But if it doesn't communicate something about you (or if you don't imprint it with meaning through some other means of communications) then it's just ink or pixels. Most of the most memorable logos are memorable not because of simplicity of their design, but because of the associations we form with them. The Coca-Cola script logo is arguable the most recognizable trademark on earth, not because of its design, but because of its ubiquity and its age.
Whether someone can draw, from memory, the green circle-mermaid-thingy of Starbucks doesn't matter. What matters is that they can recognize that green circle from six blocks away when they are stumbling through the pre-dawn darkness of an unfamiliar city, bleary with jet-lag, knowing that it is the symbol for the caffeine-bomb they so desperately need.
A logo is just a shorthand cypher for a brand, simply ink on paper - it can and will only mean what you MAKE it mean. Starbucks- through carpet-bombing paper cups all over every urban setting, has become the visual shorthand for "Coffee." As long as people recognize that- their ability to parse the mermaid are irrelevant.
11
Airbnb imagines its hosts will actually spend money on putting this new logo on bathrobes and God knows what else, like chain hotels? Are these people high? The whole point of staying in private homes is to avoid that kind of generic experience. Also: why on earth should anybody be able to-- or even want- to draw a corporate logo? I am a customer. Not my problem.
17
In fact, Airbnb is marketing that concept — that some of those non-hotel rentals will be run with some hotel amenities. I read that the plan is to offer an upper-tier accommodation service. It will be interesting to see how that flies.
1
Wish I could have seen the oafish drawings...disappointed.
16
As you wish: https://www.signs.com/branded-in-memory/
I bet you can remember the colors if not the shapes: Coca Cola, Tiffany, Starbuck's, Cheerios box, Apple logo, FedEx, UPS truck, your favorite sports teams, the armed forces, your local police cars and fire trucks.
8
Most people can't draw a bicycle, either. (Seriously, try to do it yourself, or ask someone else to do it without looking at one for reference.) And yet, people have no trouble distinguishing bicycles from, say, wheelbarrows.
After decades in the ad business, including many projects that involved creating new names/logos, I can tell you that this article is a great branding effort... on the part of Signs.com. That company just got its trivial, faux-scientific 'study' -- which could not possibly have corrected for participants' general observational and drawing skills, among other experimental problems -- endorsed by the NYTimes.
Apple? Starbucks? There's lots to disagree with, when it comes to any major brand -- but suggesting there's anything wrong with those logos because customers can't draw 'em from memory is facile.
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This is confirmed in my case at least. I put the logo right in front of me and tried to draw it. The results go to show that my parents were right when they said I would never be a great artist, or even a mediocre one. I know how to find the starbucks in a strip mall though and I assume that's what starbucks wants out of its logo.
5
What is the point of the study? People do not need artistic talent to remember a logo. I cannot draw, but I am very good at remembering logos and can identify them easily. I have aced every internet quiz on corporate logos (with their names removed), but I could not reproduce most of them. Certainly, Starbucks is beyond most people's drawing abilities even if they were copying it. A logo has to be recognizable, not reproducible.
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