Background
In sponsor reports Lifting the Lid on Consumer Packaging Redesigns and Is it time to modernise the pack?, we discussed that modernisation, or keeping the pack up to date, was the most common reason for a pack change. This was cited as the main reason in 31% of pack redesigns. Managers stated they do not want to be ‘left behind’ or be the brand in the category with an outdated pack, which they thought of as lagging behind competitors.
In this report, we tackle another even more commonly encountered redesign area, that of the logo. It seems that every organisation has a logo. Logos pervade our society, appearing not only in businesses, but also in non-profits, from charities to sporting and community organisations and government departments.
We report on the most common reasons for logo redesign and the perceived success of such redesigns as judged by marketers. Then, we turn to consumers and see how they evaluate these same logos based on a common reason for logo redesign, which is to modernise or keep the logo up-to-date.
Specifically, we address the following questions:
- Where does keeping up-to-date/modern rank as a reason for logo redesign?
- How successful do marketers rate their efforts to modernise logos?
- Do consumers prefer logos that have been modernised over their original counterparts?
Question 1: Where does keeping up-to-date/modern rank as a reason for logo redesigns?
We recruited 171 marketers who had been involved in a logo change in the last 10 years, and asked them questions about this last change. One of the key questions was the reason for the redesign, and the most common response is the sense that the design is out-of-date (Table 1).
Also evident in the reasons are the two key roles that the logo plays in the minds of marketers.
The first is that logos serve as a communications device, whereby the logo needs to communicate the brand is relevant to today/up-to-date and specific brand perceptions, which can change over time as the brand’s meaning changes. This is captured in the first two reasons for redesigns; Design is out of date and To shift brand perceptions.
The second role is that logos serve as a branding device, or Distinctive Assets, whereby its role is to be identified/found in the environment, and be uniquely linked to the brand. This is captured in the reasons: To stand out and To address logo confusion.
The fact that logos as a communication device dominates the responses suggests that this is the primary lens many marketers view their logo.
Table 1: Reasons for logo redesign (over 10%)
Question 2: How successful do marketers rate their logo redesigns for modernising/keeping up-to-date?
Next, we asked marketers how they evaluated the success of logo redesigns. The results were collected as verbatim and then sorted and coded into key themes. Overall, marketers tended to give themselves high marks with success ratings for logo redesigns at 80% or above. The most common success measure used to evaluate success was anecdotal feedback, which is described as the use of internal or external testimonials or feedback. However, as shown in Table 2, the approach to assessing success made no difference to the success rating; it was 80% or higher regardless.
Table 2: Approaches to assessing success and success rating
We then examined the relationship between the reason for the redesign and the marketer-rated success of the redesign. All motives were rated as successful by the vast majority of marketers, with scores over 80% for most reasons (Figure 1). The exception is To stand out, where redesigns with this motive in mind were rated a bit more more successful than those without (88% v 79%, p<0.05). Regardless of marketers’ intended motives logo redesigns were generally rated as highly successful.
Figure 1: Motives for redesign and marketer rated success
Question 3: Do consumers prefer logos that have been modernised over their original counterparts?
One of the main reason marketers redesign logos is to keep them looking up-to-date for consumers, based on the belief that shifts in consumer tastes can make a logo look out-of-date. This means to judge the success of ‘updating’ a logo, we need to turn to consumers to find out their views.
To do this we identified 20 logos that had been redesigned to make the logo look more modern & up-to-date.
We then surveyed 1239 consumers, asking them which of the two logos they preferred, or they could state no preference if they could not decide. The good news is consumers typically had a preference, with only 10% on average remained undecided. The uncomfortable news is that consumers were somewhat more likely to prefer the old logo (Average 49%) than the newly redesigned one (Average 42%). In only eight of 20 cases did the newly redesigned logo get equal or higher preference (see Figure 2). In the remaining cases, the majority of consumers preferred the older design (see Figure 3)
Figure 2: Brands with logo redesigns where the new version with preference scores higher or equal to the old version
Figure 3: Brands with logo redesigns where the old logo achieved higher preference scores than the newly redesigned logo
It is clear that changing the design of a logo to make it more modern/up-to-date does not guarantee it will be preferred over the older version of the logo. This is because while consumers may prefer logos that look more modern/up-to-date, they often disagree on what that ‘modern’ actually looks like. We see this play out in the following analysis.
When we modelled ratings of a logo being modern/up-to-date against preference, we found that in most cases, rating a logo as more modern/up-to-date increased the chances of picking it as the preferred version by about 80%-90%. This holds true for both logo versions. People who thought the old version was more up-to-date were more likely to pick that version, while people who thought the newer redesigned version was more up-to-date were more likely to prefer that version.
For example, comparing the ratings of each version of the logo on ‘the design is modern’ (7-point likert scale, 1= Strongly Disagree; 4= no opinion, 7= Strongly agree), we found that:
- There is a significant difference between the modern rating for the logo version selected versus not, with the logo selected rated higher as a more modern version
- There is a significant difference between the modern rating of those who selected a logo versus those who had no preference, with the chosen logo rated as more modern
- However, there is no difference between the modern rating for the two logo versions when we compare those who selected the old version with those who selected the redesigned version (averaging 5.0 for both versions)
Table 3: Linking logo preference and modernised rating
The key implications of these findings are discussed below as a series of questions and answers.
Key Implications
‘Modernisation’ as a key motive for logo redesign is a risky proposition, as it seems consumers do not have a consistent point of view on what a more modern/up-to-date logo looks like. Therefore, there is the risk of incurring costs without any benefit to the brand (or indeed some detriment if there is a strong preference for the old logo). This is similar to prior recommendations in the pack redesign space, detailed in Is it time to modernise the pack?. Therefore, we recommend only redesigning the logo when there is a clear, direct benefit, such as enabling a brand to better stand out or avoid being confused with a competitor’s brand identity.
Finally, this research highlights that marketers are poor judges of their own redesigns’ success, highlighting the need for robust research rather than just relying on internal resources or small scale opinion-based feedback.
