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There is an old adage for business dress – “Dress for the job you want, not the job you have”. The idea is that if you are already looking the part, it is easier for people to take you seriously and perhaps help you move along that corporate ladder down the road. Appearance plays a big part of how people in the business world are evaluated, and your dress goes a long ways towards how professional you appear and how seriously people take you.
The same basic principle applies to the look of your company’s marketing materials. If you are a one person operation that wants to land larger, more lucrative clients (or increasingly even some of the smaller clients), you need to do what you can to look the part of a professional organization. You don’t need to spend thousands on overly fancy corporate brochures, but the materials you do put out definitely need to be clean, well organized and professional in appearance. Handing out something that looks like you put it together at home doesn’t help the appearance of your company and it can actually hurt when you’re trying to land that client.
Your marketing materials, just like your wardrobe, should reflect the company you want to be.
I love the studio intros that movie companies have put together at the beginning of movies. You know… those little movie snippets with the various company names on them evolving out of some nifty graphics. Usually revolving around a logo. Some of the newer movie companies have truly come up with some great artsy and creative intros, which do bear looking at. But for the sake of today’s post, I want to focus on those of the older, more established movie companies.
(For a look at a variety of these intros, check out the following on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9PtpALF_3w&feature=BF&list=PLD25EE797D1D52470&index=6
If you’ve been watching movies for any length of time, you can probably recognize the intro to most of the main studios: MGM, Disney, Paramount, Universal, Dreamworks, Lions Gate, etc. And you will most likely continue to recognize these intros almost immediately, regardless of how much these intros have in fact been updated over the years. The reason for this is that even though these “video logos” have evolved – adding animation here, updating to new sharper graphics and colors there – the basics of the logo are still intact. Dreamworks, for example has taken the static picture of the kid fishing on the moon and added animation. Disney’s iconic castle logo has evolved into a flowing movie intro following a train to the castle, which is now beautifully done in 3D. Even the old MGM lion now actually roars and moves. The evolved intros are decidedly modern, and for the most part don’t look like they are up to 50 or more years old, but they are definitely rooted firmly in their iconic past. And thus, their brand recognition continues to build. (These intros are, in fact, so recognizable that as I was looking at the various intros on youtube, my four year old recognized them from across the room and could name various movies associated with each.)
For anyone looking to update their existing logos, it doesn’t hurt to take your cue from these movie giants. If you have an existing clientele who recognizes your logo, but still feel the need to update it (either to enter new markets or simply because it’s becoming dated), make sure it is really an update, but still maintains the brand recognition of your existing logo.
What are your favorite movie studio intros/intro updates?
The last couple months saw news stories about two major companies’ adventures in changing their corporate logos. One (GAP) didn’t go over so well and the company ended up scrapping the new logo and going back to the tried and true old one. While Starbuck’s new logo seems to be going over well. So what’s the difference? Apart from the actual designs of the logos, the biggest difference seems to be the reasons behind changing the logo.
For GAP, it appears the logo change was meant as a way to garner attention and bump up lagging sales. While a new logo can get your company new attention, it isn’t necessarily worth it just for that reason. The result of GAPs logo change was the customers and critics jumped online to pan it. Turns out it wasn’t the old logo that was hurting sales. In fact, people liked and were attached to the old logo, and turned off by the attempt to modernize the timeless, classic existing logo.
For Starbucks, the logo change is meant as a way to not only update the recognized siren logo, but actually give the company the ability to expand beyond just coffee. By updating the existing logo and taking out the text, the company is making the logo more versatile. And although the new Starbucks logo has its own critics, there isn’t nearly the uproar as there was for GAP. I think the reason why, is that in this case it’s a logo change that makes more sense. The old logo isn’t completely gone (it’s a revamp). And there’s a real logical reason for the change.
So what is the lesson for us small businesses who do not have huge marketing staffs and budgets to figure out when to change our logos? One, make sure it’s a really good reason. Two, make sure that your clients aren’t super attached to the existing logo. You don’t want to alienate current customers. And three, don’t completely scrap the old logo if you do decide to change. By keeping elements of the old logo, you can help minimize upsetting current customers.
http://money.cnn.com/2010/10/08/news/companies/gap_logo/index.htm
http://www.thestreet.com/story/10964054/starbucks-new-logo-sleek-or-bleak.html
