A study of the impact of brand logos on the consumer psyche

Abstract

Brand Logos’ content and meaning conveyance journey starts from the designer’s end and ends at consumers. The inherent conundrum here being that the design elements such as the representativeness of the logo and the perspective, the coherence between the constituent elements etc. can be objectively assessed from strictly semiotics perspectives, but while conveying logo personality traits via these design elements, the impact could be misguided or the meaning misconstrued. This text firstly makes certain amendments to the existing framework for Logo Personality Analysis and then goes on to propose three hypotheses. The first being that the personality traits inherent in a logo, engender related/synergistic feelings/emotions/affectual response in the audience’s psyche. This hypothesis gets proven by the two primary studies conducted in the first half of the project as a significant relationship between the traits and the emotional effect on audience is observed. Secondly, the text posits that the contextual fit of a logo (vis-à-vis its personality traits) with the brand/product messaging, can have a significant impact on the purchase intention towards that product, in absence of any assisting information. This hypothesis is validated strongly, in all the three categories (Aggressiveness, Emotionality and Responsibility) the analysis is conducted. Lastly, the report posits that Familiarity with a logo will have a positive effect on the affectual response associated with it and the purchase intention of the related product. Not enough data could be collected, at the time of writing this report to validate that claim. However, within the categories that had sufficient data, the hypothesis was validated.