A new logo won’t bring more customers.

You might be surprised to hear this, especially from a designer. Your new logo design won’t bring you more customers. A clever new tagline won’t bring more visitors to your city. Not even a new logo and tagline together (no matter how creative) will convince a customer or business decision maker to spend money with you and not your competitor.

Think about your last purchase decision. Was it the latest and greatest computer? Perhaps a pair of running shoes or even a family vacation? Now, ask yourself, “was it the logo on the computer or on the side of the shoe that swayed you to buy? Of course not. You might be thinking “Well, the Nike swoosh on the side of my new running shoes symbolizes quality and my mantra “just do it”. And the apple logo on my new iPad tells me and the guy sitting next to me on the plane that I bought the latest techno gadget that’s amazingly intuitive and simple to use.

But the logo didn’t tell you these things. It just reminded you. Your opinion or enthusiasm about these products is the sum total of all of your experiences with the brand behind your favorite products. Years of commercials, news articles, consumer reports, celebrity endorsements and the opinions of your friends and family have shaped your opinion about these product brands. The logo marks reinforce what you have already come to believe. When you see them, your brain recalls your opinion or gut feeling — good or bad without you even knowing it. What you’re really buying is reputation. And reputation is a huge part of brand.

I’m continually surprised how much emphasis clients and prospective clients place on logo design. It’s as if their internal dialogue must sound something like, “If I just had an awesome logo, everything would fall into place and I would sell the heck out of these widgets.”

Destination Brands
So, let’s say you’re planning a family vacation to somewhere you’ve never been. You’re on the fence between a road trip to either Kansas City or St. Louis, Missouri. Both good choices. You pull up each city’s official tourism website, and at the top of each page is their respective logos and slogan. Now, which one will you choose to spend thousands of dollars and a week of precious vacation time?

That’s silly. Of course you aren’t going to make a decision based on which logo and/or slogan strikes your fancy. And yet state and city Convention and Visitors Bureaus across the country spend tens of thousands of dollars on designing logos and taglines to do just that.

Take a look at these city tourism logos. Would they convince you to plan your company’s annual meeting there or visit on your next family vacation? Or is there something bigger at play, like a gut feeling about each of these places, but you’re just not sure why?

Think Bigger. (to be continued)