The mistake of seeking differentiation only in the logo

We could say that a logo is the minimum unit of representation of a company’s identity. This leads us to think that having an attractive, representative, and above all, distinctive logo in the market is essential.

Take a look at this:

Three stripes, two overlapping circles with a word written in an impersonal typeface below, a logo consisting of just a single seemingly generic letter, another along the same lines with a cursive effect, a curve without text, two circles, and a basic letter written in uppercase. At first glance, if we didn’t know these companies or the effort they’ve put into building the businesses these logos represent, we could say that the logos above are not even fully representative or distinctive.

Is this a mistake? Not entirely, if we consider that, in reality, the function of a logo is to serve as a ”seal” that captures over time everything a company is, taking on a symbolic value that results from all the associations and judgments people make about the products, services, actions, operations, and public behavior of the company that seal identifies.

While for many of us who work in branding it’s common to receive requests from entrepreneurs, business owners, or communication managers who come ”looking for a logo,” the important thing is to identify what they actually need when they raise such a request.

One of the main functions of logos is to identify a company and make it recognizable, while differentiating it from other companies that may be competitors offering consumers substitute options when making a choice.

Brands have a DNA, a behavior, and by extension, they closely resemble people. Can you imagine having a baby and choosing not to give it a name?

Giving something a name — and a form — is giving it existence and meaning. That’s why the exercise of identifying businesses, products, services, categories, or experiences is a constitutive, foundational activity.

The brand name and logo are elements that allow companies to present themselves publicly and, by extension, hold significance in the lives of those who lead them.

The problem appears if you think ”the job is done” once your company has a name and a logo to make itself known.

In fact, a brand’s identity is the result of prior work that consists of understanding the market territory where the company, product, or service the brand represents will be operating, recognizing and analyzing its competitors, and identifying and understanding who its customers and consumers will be.

The exercise of working on brand names, logos, and other assets that ensure differentiation to favor identification and recognition is, therefore, legitimate — though insufficient to guarantee a company’s presence, resonance, and positioning in the market.

So we now know that having a name and a logo is important because they represent the brand’s value over time, rising to the level of symbols that transform companies into important players not only in the market, but also in society.

Consider that the ”Nike swoosh” was created by Carolyn Davidson in 1971 and sold for 35 USD. That swoosh went from being ”a 35-dollar logo” to one worth 33.7 billion dollars. Thus, the logo also represents the company’s economic value and all its symbolic capital:

Nike is not just its products, its technology, its infrastructure, and its sales — it is also everything it means and represents to its consumers.

Both economic and symbolic value are increased through a deliberate business strategy, along with a branding strategy capable of driving results in favor of the company’s objectives.

Branding work is more about strategy than art, although one doesn’t invalidate the other: branding needs strategic thinking so that creative decisions are not made based on personal taste, passing trends, or someone else’s whims.

Branding is strategic because it needs to inspire informed decisions that ensure marketing, design, and communication efforts are effectively working in favor of the business.

For this reason, we believe that seeking differentiation only in the logo is not just an insufficient and reductionist move — it is simply a technical error.

At Estudio Nómade, we help our clients establish a long-term branding strategy, identifying opportunities to declare and steer a relevant positioning in the markets where their company operates.

At the same time, we go beyond strategy to activate and deploy brand actions across tangible formats and initiatives: delivering a brand manual will likely guide and inspire high-level decisions, but translating strategy guidelines into concrete communication actions and formats is what our clients value most — and the reason they come back to us.

If you’re a business person ready to integrate branding into your daily operations, here’s what we’d tell you:

• Know that you will need to allocate resources to lay the foundations of a strategy that characterizes not just who your company is, but fundamentally, how it acts;
• Know that your brand is not the logo — it is much more than that, and that established companies are those that achieved total alignment between the philosophy they preach and the reality they operate day to day: branding professionals alone are not responsible for a company’s branding — its founders, directors, middle management, and collaborators all ”build the brand” in how they work every day and in every decision they make;
• Know that you will have to delegate trust to professionals who interpret, shape your strategy, and activate it with messages, forms, images, and colors;
• Know that you will need patience and to manage your anxiety: brand value is built over time, and having a brand identity or a brand manual is not the end of the work — it is just the beginning;
• Finally, know that companies that embrace branding in their daily operations are the ones that sharpen their market competitiveness, multiply their reach, increase their sales, build loyalty, amplify their legacy, and by extension, add value to the efforts you and your team make to keep the business running.

If you’re looking for a studio to help you build a branding proposition that goes ”beyond the logo,” perhaps getting to know us would be a great option. Shall we?

Write to us at info@nomadeweb.com. More personal? Let’s schedule a meeting (: