Customer Experience, Not Logos, Form the Foundation of Your Brand

This post is by Michael Pollock, the original owner of Small Business Branding. Yaro Starak now owns and produces the latest content for this blog.

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I ran across an article in Entrepreneur Magazine today called "The Basics of Branding." It irritated me. In the fourth paragraph, John WIlliams, the article’s author, writes:

"The foundation of your brand is
your logo. Your website, packaging and promotional materials–all of
which should integrate your logo–communicate your brand."

As it turns out, John is EM’s "Image and Branding columnist." He’s also the founder and president of LogoYes.com, "the world’s first do-it-yourself logo design website," so it might make sense that he would suggest your logo is not just important, but it is "the foundation of your brand."

With all due respect John, do I really need to define the word
"foundation?" Probably not, but to make a point, I will anyway.
According to Dictionary.com, a foundation is "the basis on which a
thing stands, is founded, or is supported."

I don’t mean to be argumentative, but how can someone who is
presumably an expert on branding suggest that a company’s brand is
built upon the logo? And by the way, John began the article by stating:

"Branding is one of the most important aspects of any business, large or small, retail or B2B."

He then defines a brand as "your promise to your customer." So
let me make sure I understand this. Your brand is your promise to your
customer, and that promise is built upon a logo??!! Are you kidding me
John?

Does anyone besides me see a problem with this? Here’s a person
whose company sells logos. He’s telling a lot of people that logos are
not just important but that they form the very foundation upon which a
company’s promise to its customer is built. And it’s patently wrong!

I think most people know as well as I do that what you expect from a
company has little, if anything, to do with the company’s logo. The logo only reminds you of what you expect from the company. The actual expectation is built upon:

1. your past experience(s) with that company and/or its products.
2. what other people tell you about that company and/or its products.

I’m not saying logos aren’t important, but they are hardly the foundation of what your customer’s expect from you. Look at the following logos of some well-known company’s. Did all these companies build their brand upon those logos?
 

         

    

It’s this type of agenda-driven misinformation that constantly confounds business people about brands and branding in general. I’m very disappointed in Entrepreneur Magazine for this one. But the interesting thing is I’ve had so many positive experiences with that magazine in the past, this one disappointment won’t turn me away. No matter what their logo looks like.

Related Post: What Is Small Business Branding