Take a second and think about your favorite brand. Perhaps it’s a sports brand, like Nike or a car brand like Mercedes or BMW. And now think about that brand’s logo. How does a logo make you feel? Do you like it, do you feel excited or motivated? Are the colors bright and colorful?
What is invisible logo?
For most people, logo immediately connects our minds to the business in question, without the need to see the brand name. Think of the golden arches of a popular fast-food chain, or the apple with a bite taken out of it, representing a certain computer company. Logos play an important emotional role in influencing decision making, especially when information or time is limited. Logos are valuable assets for brands, they can elicit strong feelings in consumers, so it is important to get them right.
Neuroscientists have been studying how brain recognizes and reacts to a logo and how it impacts decision-making. For example, they have used brain imaging to take a closer look at how we think about logos. Also, neuroscience research reveals that when words overlay images, the brain tends to ignore or overlook the word in favor of focusing on the image.
Latest research shows that great branding can be ‘invisible’ or better say not evident. Is it possible to design an image which looks like a logo to the brain but at the same time is not consciously associated with it? By something invisible, a seemingly irrelevant abstract image that conserves idiosyncratic features of the original logo, but otherwise is not consciously recognized, identified or associated with the logo.
Imagine that you are listening to the classic Pink Floyd album “The Dark Side of the Moon”. It’s one of the greatest music albums ever with more than 22 million copies sold. While Pink Floyd does have a logo, most fans associate this rock group with a triangle and a rainbow coming through a prism, which is a cover of The Dark Side of the Moon album.
You can gently remind about the brand … any time, any place
Thus, if you want to remind about the brand, you can creatively modify original triangle logo until it becomes an abstract icon not explicitly associated with a brand it represents. For example, you can hire photograph and make a night photo with a triangle painted by light. The idea of the invisible logo makes branding more distinct and less intrusive. It aims to discretely and tactfully accompany daily routines of consumers and shoppers. It means that brands can activate mental representations by a more distinct way of brand activation.