Your brand is not your logo

From "Seth Godin"
Smart marketers understand that a new logo can't possibly increase your market share, and they know that an expensive logo doesn't defeat a cheap logo. They realize that the logo is like a first name, it's an identifier.

So, when Pepsi and BestBuy start 'testing' logos, and proclaiming that a new logo might change their market share, I get nervous. You can't test a logo any more than you can test a first name. Sure, you can eliminate Myxlplyx as an outlier, but given the success of the Starbucks mermaid and the Dunkin Donuts typeface (two outliers) you can see that this testing is sort of meaningless. "Read More"

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I've read most of Seth's stuff and usually I fall squarely on one side or the other, this time I'm kind of on the fence. I love cool logos, probably more than most, but what happens when the logo is known by many but it's more than the brand or the product?


We've all seen the "No Fear" logo (sticker) on the back window of a passing car, if you live in my area you see it a bunch, a whole bunch. What's their product? I always figured it was stickers, go to their "site" and find out for yourself and get a free sticker while your at it. Does or did the popularity of the No Fear logo increase their market share? I'm not sure, I've never seen anyone wearing their clothing. I have seen their energy drink but until today I never really associated the drink with their logo. Is that the logo designers fault that I didn't put the 2 together or is it mine?

Seth writes "I guess the punchline is: take the time and money and effort you'd put into an expensive logo and put them into creating a product and experience and story that people remember instead." I agree 100% while a logo that's remembered is important you still have to have a product that will do the logo justice. Maybe part of the issue is that the people that create the product are not the same people that design the logo and then it's a different group that's in charge of creating the experience. Thanks to Starbucks it is all about the experience.......