Chapter 1: Introduction
I. Introduction
Logos are essential to companies since it is considered as the face of the company. It summarizes the company itself and leaves a mark to their loyal customers. The logo was popularized in 1876 by Bass Brewery, Brewing Company. They trademarked the world’s first logo, which is simplistic to its nature, being only a scarlet triangle with the company name under it. And today, Bass Brewery was once the most selling beer in the UK. The logo was even mentioned in Joyce’s epic novel ‘Ulysses’. She mentioned how the logo was so simple yet so mesmerizing. The logo of any company represents the company as a whole, so the company has to make itself not only presentable but also enthusiastic.
Logos is one of the essential tools when it comes to business. Looks plays a huge part in whether a customer buys a product. So, when a customer sees a logo and it does not have an enthusiastic look to it, they will simply ignore it. Enthusiasm is not just the factor of a successful logo, there are many factors that can affect the brand (for example: logo activity, balance, cohesiveness, complexity, depth, durableness, organized, parallel, proportion, repetition of elements, representations, roundness and symmetry). These said factors can affect the customer’s consumption on the product. Increased consumption leads to more sales thus more revenue for the firm.
The firm’s performance is how efficiently a business can run and how long the said business will last. The customer’s consumption of a product can significantly affect the firm’s performance since its performance is reliant to the consumption of their product. Basically, it’s just a loop, the more consumption the more output a company can make and more output more consumption. Since there are many factors that can affect these, the logo is the one that stands out. This determines the purpose for the researchers to determine the correlation of logo design to product consumption.
II. Statement of the Problem
Ideally a logo design is a factor that companies give high priority to. Investing more time and money into the logo’s design will not only improve the image of the company but also attract more customers. This will lead to an increase in sales and a more successful business.
The problem is that a company that doesn’t maximize the quality of their logo will not be able reach their full potential of firm performance. High-quality logo design may correlate to more consumption of a product. Startup companies may also fail if they do not present a high-quality logo. This is the reason logos shouldn’t be overlooked. Another problem is false recognition or when consumer believe that a logo represents a different company, thus causing confusion, which is something that must be avoided. Companies also tend to change their logos, this can also affect their reputation and customer relations. One example is GAP, they changed their logo back in 2010 and received many backlashes.
The researchers plan is to determine the correlation of a logo design to the consumption behavior of a good and help companies increase firm performance and customer relations. The paper will explain why brand logos have a significant effect on the firm and the customers.
III. Purpose
The purpose of this study is to analyze the correlation of a logo design to the consumption behavior of a good and how this may affect many companies.
IV. Objectives of the Study
The objective of this research is to determine the correlation of a logo design to the consumption behavior of a good and help companies increase firm performance and customer relations. This research will also discuss how important it is for a company to have a high-quality logo and its possible effects on the company.
V. Research Question and Sub-questions
How can companies use logo design to maximize the consumption of a product?
1. What is a logo design?
2. What is consumption behavior?
3. How important is logo design to a company? Why?
4. What are the specific guidelines for creating a logo with maximum results?
5. Are those guidelines necessary? Why?
6. Do different logo designs serve different purposes? How so?
7. Does logo design affect the consumption behavior of a product?
VI. Research Hypothesis
Products with high-quality logo design will have a more positive affect to consumption behavior because the logo may be able to catch the interest of the observers and allow them to remember the brand.
VII. Scope and Delimitation
In order to determine the correlation between logo design and consumption behavior, this study will be conducted on 30 Senior High School students coming from La Salle Green Hills. Statistics on the correlation of logo design to consumption of a product were also used in the study to encourage companies to prioritize more the design of their company logo. The researchers opted to discuss logo design because it is the one of first factors an observer notices when examining the product.
Different logo designs and questions about those logos were used in surveys conducted on students to determine how much affect the logo design has on the consumers. Overall statistics, previous studies, and surveys on students were the only factors taken into account in determining the correlation of logo design to consumption of a product.
VIII. Definition of Terms
1. Branding – Branding is endowing products and services with the power of a brand.
(Kotler & Keller, 2015)
2. Customer Loyalty – Is when a customer only purchases from specific brands.
(Brandon Carter)
3. Firm Performance – a relevant construct in strategic management research and frequently used as a dependent variable.
(J. B. Santos, L. A. L. Brito)
4. Logo – A recognizable graphic design element, often including a name, symbol or trademark, representing an organization or product .
(Entrepreneur staff)
5. Consumption Behavior – the study of how people make decisions about what they buy, want, need, or act in regards to a product, service, or company.
(Tara Schofield)
IX. Significance of the Study
This research will allow existing companies or start-up companies to see the relevance of high-quality brand logos and persuade those companies to invest more time and money on their brand logos since it has many factors that can lead to success for their company. With this companies can increase firm performance and customer relations, which further leads to a more successful and longer lasting business.
Chapter 2
I. Theoretical Framework
Processing different degrees of logo change: When higher levels of brand consciousness decrease openness to substantial logo changes.
This research relies on the theory ‘Processing different degrees of logo change: When higher levels of brand consciousness decrease openness to substantial logo changes.’. This was authored by Bo van Grinsven (Communication Science, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands). The theory suggests that logo changes can have a significant effect on the consumer and market conditions. This is relevant to the research since the paper’s goal is to find out if logo can change customer consumption of a brand.
II. Review of Related Literature
Aside from the theory stated in the Theoretical Framework research paper also relies on the theory that certain logo design (Henderson and Cole (1978)) characteristics can target different people. This includes activity, balance, cohesiveness, complexity, depth, durableness, organization, parallel, proportion, repetition of elements, representations, roundness and symmetry. For Example, moderately elaborate, highly natural and highly harmonious designs create a positive effect. Simple logos were also evaluated as best and most positive.) (Grinsven and Das (2014)). With regards to logo redesigns, changing subtle elements can have a major impact on the observers. Also in regards to redesign and changes (Shapiro and Nelsen (2013)) implicit awareness of a change increases allocation of processing resources to the changed information, which at the time of judgment positively affects processing fluency.
Chapter 3: Methodology
I. Instrumentation
For this study, the researchers will conduct a survey test on logo designs and which are more appealing to them. The survey will be composed of 10 questions with each having 2 different logos. The survey will be answered by students ranging from Grade 10-12. The survey is open to any student from any school inside that grade level bracket since any student inside that bracket can already logically describe something they see.
II. Developing the survey
The survey will consist of 10 questions in which the researchers will ask if the logo look appealing to the one answering the survey and ask if they are willing to buy from that product. In the first question we will show the current Pepsi logo and the 2003 Pepsi logo.
Analysis of survey about Correlation of logo to customer consumption of a product
The side by side comparison of the Pepsi logo that was shown in the survey.
Our survey was answered by 31 people, students from different schools but mostly from LSGH. Our participants are grade levels 10 and 11. This is the result from our first question.
First Question
According to the graph above, 74.2% preferred the current Pepsi logo, while 25.8% preferred the 2003 Pepsi logo. This means that the participants preferred the current logo.
Second Question
The second question was for the people who preferred the current logo. It asked what made them choose the current one. 64% preferred the simplistic design to it, 28% chose it because it looks better while 8% chose because it is artistic, no one chose the option that it has an impact. This means that the people that chose the current logo prefers a simplistic design when it comes to logos.
Third Question
The third question was for the ones who chose the 2003 logo. This question has some mixed responses. 44.4% chose because it looked better, 33.3% chose because it has an impact, 11.1% chose because it has an extravagant design while 11.1% chose because it is artistic. The most of the people who chose the 2003 logo preferred it over the current logo because it just simply was better.
Fourth Question
In this question we asked the respondents who chose the current logo if they disliked the 2003 logo. 82.1% answered no while 17.9% answered yes.
Fifth Question
In this question we asked the respondents who chose the 2003 logo if they disliked the present logo. 50% answered yes while 50% answered no. The people who answered this had mixed emotions with the current logo.
‘
Sixth Question
In this question we asked the respondents what they dislike about the present logo. 63.6% answered nothing, 0% answered shape, 22.7% answered simplicity while 18.2% answered the design of the logo. Most of the people who answered had no problems with the current logo.
‘
Seventh Question
In this question we asked the respondents what they like about the 2003 logo. 39.3% answered nothing. 7.1% answered the shape. 25% answered extravagant and 35.7% answered the design. That means even if more people had no problems with the design, there is still a significant amount that said the design is the problem with the logo.
Eighth Question
In this question we asked the respondents if a logo affect their view of a brand. 87.1% answered yes while 12.9% answered no. Majority of our respondents answered yes, this means that for most people, a logo sets their view of a brand. This is important for companies to know since according to the survey, a logo can set a view of a company.
Ninth Question
This question asked the respondents if they judge companies by their logo. 58.1% answered yes while 41.9% answered no. Most of the respondents answered yes. According to David Airey, an Irish graphic designer and the author of ‘Love Design Love’ said that ‘A logoless company is a faceless man.’ This means that the logo is the face of the company, since it is the face of the company, it is the first being judged at.
Tenth Question
In this question we asked the respondents if the logos have anything to improve on. 67.7% said that the logos can improve on the design, 22.6% answered none and 9.7% answered the color. Most of the respondents had a problem with the all in all design of Pepsi. This can help Pepsi on improving their logo so that they can increase their reputation among its customers.
Summary and Conclusion
The purpose of this survey is to determine if logos have any correlation with customer consumption. Based on the answers of the respondents, we can say that it does affect the consumers. Most of the respondents preferred the present logo of Pepsi because it has a simpler design and is more appealing than the 2003 logo of Pepsi, which had a more extravagant and artistic design. Most respondents also believed that the logo design affects their judgment and view of a specific company or brand. Most respondents also believed that both logos could improve their design, meaning that the Pepsi logo still isn’t perfect, but it did do a decent job, considering it was the more favored logo. The preference for the present logo backs up the hypothesis of this paper that the simpler and more appealing logo has a more positive affect on consumption behavior by the result of the survey.
The data collected from the survey can aid researchers who plan to look deeper into logo design and consumption behavior. It can also be used as reference of researchers to other related topics. Furthermore, this will inspire other researchers to discover the effects of various logo designs on consumption behavior.
The study was only conducted to about 30 respondents, therefore further research is required to perfect the study.
‘