What’s in a logo? The shortest answer is “lots”.
You can potentially cram a logo full of all sorts of Meanings & Feelings; make a logo pretty much stand for anything. It’s one of those small, yet great wonders of advertising.
A brand's logo can be an incredibly elegant visual short-hand for any amount of Opinions & Ideas & Associations. In observing the finest semiotic traditions, a brand’s logo is a signifier, and when done well, it can signify So Much.
An ironic reference point, but as Naomi Klein puts it in No Logo (2000),
“Brands have become cultural accessories and personal philosophies.”
A brand’s logo therefore becomes a gateway, a portal through which we pass into the emotional, rational, Philosophical Universe of that brand. Yes, kind of like a Stargate if you want to take the analogy in that direction.
Take Nike.
You see the Swoosh, and it’s so identifiably Nike.
And that Swoosh immediately sign-posts Just Do It, and that takes you into a busy and buzzing Universe of Feelings, many you don’t even have to put words or apply labels to. You just feel it.
I cited the Nike Swoosh as part of a global brand strategy I once pitched to Deutsche Bank.
Deutsche Bank were (and remain) very proud of their logo, a square, encasing a rising diagonal line.
The logo was designed in 1974 by “the pioneer of Constructive Graphic Art”, a German called Anton Stankowski. Probably his most famous piece of design, it was intended to signify “Controlled growth”, and it doesn’t require a semiotic mastermind to derive this clear meaning.
Deutsche Bank’s issue was that their logo wasn't universally recognised for much, "controlled growth" or otherwise. They had any amount of brand tracking which scored high on awareness (in the latent sense) and low on affinity (in the “brand I dig, brand for me” sense).
The world over, Deutsche Bank’s logo was little more than as it appeared to people, a diagonal line inside a square. An added dimension was that Deutsche Bank wanted their brand (and their logo) to stand for, “Passion to Perform”, a tagline in their advertising and literature - but also a tagline that they stressed was So Much More than just a tagline, rather an entire value system and differentiating way of doing business and making money. “Passion to Perform” was the proposition that drove and defined them.
The long-short of Deutsche Bank's brand dilemma, a logo that meant one thing had inherited another, less obvious meaning, and few audiences around the world were feeling it.
Reassuringly, making one thing synonymous with another, even if they initially appear incongruous, is very doable. It’s where Nike’s swoosh provides a handy example.
The Nike "swoosh'" was created in 1971 by a graphic design student called Carolyn Davidson. She was briefed to conceive a design that could fit on a soccer shoe, as produced by... Blue Ribbon Sport. Blue Ribbon Sport only became Nike, as named after the Greek goddess of victory, in 1978, a whole 10 years before Dan Wieden (of agency Wieden+Kennedy) infamously told his client, “You Nike guys, you just do it.”
Heavy investment and unswerving commitment behind a big powerful ideal, a philosophy as Naomi Klein might call it, and the Swoosh has become Nike’s semiotic Stargate, a White Hole of Associations, inheriting and expanding and inculcating.
My pitch to Deutsche Bank was simply this.
Your logo is an icon... but not an icon in the sense of a Marylyn Monroe or a James Dean. More like an icon you double-click on. Consequently it packs modest meaning and little emotional punch. Your icon needs to realise its potential, to be all it can be, be a deep well of emotion and meanings, through a consistent set of brand behaviours and activities. It needs Scale & Stature. It needs to become Timeless. It needs to be more than an icon, it needs to be ICONIC. Because being truly iconic evokes awe.
The snappy platform idea for this: FROM ICON TO ICONIC.
We then dramatised a 5-year roll out of this Iconography strategy, proposing that Deutsche Bank work with a number of global media partners (The Economist, CNN and CNBC) to produce the kind of on-message Short and Long-form Content that appeals to CEO, entrepreneurial and high-net worth mind-sets.
Our thinking really resonated with Deutsche Bank; that symbols are felt, not just understood – but that they have to first be taught. And once taught “brand icons” may become powerful emotional signifiers (and not just “message carriers”).
4 months after pitching the over-arching platform, 2 months after successfully being appointed to work with them, Deutsche Bank announced their intentions to the world.
Deutsche Bank makes bold move with visual identity
By Russell Parsons in Marketing Week | Wed, 10 Feb 2010
Deutsche Bank is to separate its name from its logo as part of its new brand identity in a bid to demonstrate it has the confidence to be part of a “very select set of global superbrands.” The company’s visual identity will display its logo with the bank’s “Passion to Perform” claim, which is now hand written. The bank says it wants to emulate superbrands such as Nike, which is known by its swoosh logo and “Just do it” strapline.
Starbucks too have set themselves on a semiotic path to wannabee "Super-brandom". To mark their 40th anniversary, they announced January 5th 2011 that "Starbucks Coffee" was being dropped from their logo.
After 40 years of devoted service, CEO Howard Schultz declared that "The Siren" was long over-due her promotion. More so, she just didn't need the sign-posting (any more than the nipples she once sported).
"We’ve given her a small but meaningful update to ensure that the Starbucks brand continues to embrace our heritage in ways that are true to our core values and that also ensure we remain relevant and poised for future growth."
Howard Schultz, CEO, Starbucks
The move by Howard marks a shrewdly calculated emphasising AND de-emphasising of Starbuck's visual identity; a "pairing back", a de-branding gesture, which may also underline the brand's strength and stature. The removal of lettering arguably "softens", may offer soothing retort to the Anti-Corporate Brigade and No Logo trumpeters, while at the same time inferring a confidence that Starbucks is a brand so big it no longer needs to spell it out.
Is it possible to take away, but also add? To maximise two meanings, even when they're inherently contradictory? To turn up the dials on Bold & Global and Cuddly & Local at the same time?
Only time, brand tracking, and coffee sales, will tell.
In toast of all things logo, a final word on this should go to former Apple executive Jean Louis Gassée, who had this to say of the company’s bite-afflicted fruit motif:
“One of the deep mysteries to me is our logo, the symbol of lust and knowledge, bitten into, all crossed with the colors of the rainbow in the wrong order. You couldn’t dream of a more appropriate logo: lust, knowledge, hope, and anarchy.”
Lust, knowledge, hope, anarchy.
A logo is never just a logo.
SP.
Footnote:
This is brilliant. The Noun Project; making the world a better place, symbolically speaking.
http://thenounproject.com/
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