Good Branding Feels Unnatural

"Let's make the logo bigger."

When you're drafting a creative asset, you have an instinct to make your company's logo bigger. After all, you want people to remember your company right? What's the point of going through all the effort of making ads, commercials, banners, videos, etc if your logo isn't prominently and proudly displayed?

I think most of us have had this thought process. It's a natural way to think.

Unfortunately, it's not how consumers' brains work.

Here is a chart from Ipsos showing which types of cues are best at building brand associations:

A few things should stand out to you here:

All the shit that the company cares about (logos and slogans) are dead last. They are the least effective. And this makes total sense when you really think about it – our brains are not wired to remember squiggly lines of text and phrases.

We are hardwired to remember people and people-like things, shapes and sounds. Our brains evolved in the wild, after all. So our brains pay attention thinks that can kill us, or will kill us if we accidentally eat htem.

That's why those things are so effective at driving brand associations. (I bet if we could advertise with smells, it would be near the top of the list.)

This explains why household-name B2C companies are constantly coming at us with cute characters and jingles. They work! It's how our brains work.

B2B companies are so slow to figure this out, and most are stuck in the land of "make the damn logo bigger."

It's unnatural to think otherwise. But going against the grain is where you can find the most opportunity.