The effectiveness of animated logos as a brand strategy

Every business in the world wants to evolve into a strong brand, one with a unique brand identity and instant recognition. Telling a complete story without using a single word is a form of art all marketers strive to perfect. And one of the best ways of incorporating this art in your business is by creating a logo which gets etched in the minds of people forever.

We have seen giant corporations do it, that’s why it is so easy to tell the difference between a BMW and a Mercedes or find a McDonalds without landing at a Wendy’s outlet. It’s all in the logos.

However, before we discuss this topic further, we need to learn a few principles of neuromarketing. When it comes to marketing your business, and cementing it as a brand, neuromarketing can be extremely helpful.

Neuromarketing

When it comes to marketing analysis, asking the consumers “do you like this product?” is often not enough. People may answer in the affirmative and buy a different product at the end of the day. Hence, you can’t analyze a consumer’s buying decision based on verbal proof. Neuromarketing is a field of marketing which uses factors such as functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to study the stimulations and the brain’s responses to it. In simpler words, it’s used to judge consumer behavior through their response to a marketing stimulus.

The results enlighten a marketer about consumer reactions to a certain marketing stimulus, be it the color of a product package, the sound it makes when the box rattles or even their perception of the product compared to a rival brand.

Famous neuromarketing expert, Roger Dooley, however, believes that this field is not limited to analysis only. He came up with the following definition of neuromarketing:

“Neuromarketing is the application of neuroscience to marketing. Neuromarketing includes the direct use of brain imaging, scanning, or other brain activity measurement technology to measure a subject’s response to specific products, packaging, advertising, or other marketing elements. In some cases, the brain responses measured by these techniques may not be consciously perceived by the subject; hence, this data may be more revealing than self-reporting on surveys, in focus groups, etc. A marketing campaign that specifically incorporates that stimulus hoping to create that behavior can be said to incorporate neuromarketing, even though no physical testing of subjects was done for that campaign.”

It’s not a new trick for the seasoned marketer. The use of campaigns to produce some kind of brain activity in the consumer has been a longstanding process. What we need to pay attention to is the data which can be used to repeat the effect on a new campaign. Neuromarketing research can be utilized to launch powerful campaigns which make the target audience perform actions in a brand’s favor.

Coming back to logos and their effect on consumer decisions: while a static logo has always proved to be effective in positioning a brand in the market, this new way of building an animated logo has surpassed the tradition to categorize a brand as a dynamic, customer-centric entity.

When the monotony of a static logo is broken, out comes the animated logo with so much interactivity and stories to offer. The customer of today is bound to love it, because the mobile revolution has made us all habitual of watching short videos which describe a brand story in a better way than any text ever can. It is the world of emojis now, and animated messages are more than welcome by today’s customer. Thus, a brand has more chances of recognition with a creative animated logo.

Animation offers your logo the chance to become lifelike and make a lasting impression on your viewers. There are two kinds of animations when it comes to building a logo;

Agent animation
Object animation

Agent animation:

Agent animation is the self- directed movement of your brand logo. This means that the elements of your logo are moving and triggering a response. Agent animation makes it look as if the logo were alive and interacting with you. It is up to you to choose if you want it to be a funny interaction or just a plain one.

“If we think that that a logo is alive or that a brand is alive, it’s easy for us to give it a personality. If we have an underlying thought that this thing has a mind, now suddenly it’s much easier for us to feel ‘Oh, that thing is a friend’ or ‘That thing is reliable’ or ‘That thing is exciting.’ says S. Adam Brasel, Associate Professor of Marketing at Boston College. He and his co-researcher, Henrik Hagvedt, found out the importance of logo animation in marketing a business. Marketers don’t really know much about agent animation or its ability to bring a brand to life. “The logo is in many ways the centerpiece of a brand’s persona, and logo animation can help mold a brand’s image. It is therefore important that this is done strategically, to fit with the brand’s overall identity.”

Object animation:

Object animation makes use of objects that are animated alongside a brand logo. Take the example of the Universal Studios logo. We see the earth rotating before the logo comes to take its place in front of the globe. This is object animation in logo design.

According to the two researchers favorable attitudes arise when the brand personality suggested by the animation is consistent with other brand cues, such as brand slogans or the logo graphic. Object animation logos are the signs of brands that are more stable in their services, according to the researchers.

In either case, it is the duty of a company to assess whether an animated logo is required or not. Nevertheless, an animated logo undoubtedly is a great investment which turns your brand logo into a timeless content piece. Your content strategy can certainly get a boost when you use an animated logo wherever you post your content.

Here are some ways in which an animated logo can prove to be effective for your brand:

Brand awareness

The main purpose of a logo is to create brand awareness, and an animated logo can do that in a shorter time span than a stationary logo. In fact, it can make your brand memorable and timeless. If you are the first business in your niche to do this, your logo will also go down in history and become timeless. Your brand can come alive and interact with customers through colors, animation and design. Consequently, the impression that your viewers have will be that of an energetic, forward thinking brand which takes care of its customers. All of these factors enhance your brand identity, since people will be bound to talk about your unique logo.

Virality

We have all seen that little lamp in Pixar movies which jumps on the letter “i” to take its place. In time, this effect becomes rooted in the minds of the audience and people come to expect it at the beginning of every Pixar movie. This is the reach and effect of a brilliantly animated logo. You just can’t imagine the brand without it, because it is so vividly saved in your memory.

Once you build an animated logo, it’s a good idea to turn it into a GIF. Auto playing GIFs are very popular in today’s age of visual content. Almost every social medium has now incorporated a GIF section in their comments, which can increase your exposure. If the logo is really well done, it can achieve valuable virality on the internet.

Good logos are often turned into “memes” as well, which is considered a success for any online marketer. Viral GIFs are memorable and can be traced back to your brand, building value for your business. You can also post these GIFs wherever relevant on your social media posts, to seed the content to your followers.

SEO

Animated logos have to be embedded into the website in order to play. This provides you with an excellent opportunity to boost the SEO of your website in that category. Visual content is more popular than text, so a user is expected to spend more time on your website if you have a video which auto plays when they land on the page.

This can improve the visibility and usefulness of your website with regard to search engines and ultimately, search results. Google and other search engines take into account the visibility of a website, which you can achieve by placing an animated logo. Your website rankings will be improved if the search engines see higher visibility of the webpages.

Competitive edge

Not every brand is incorporating this strategy in their business, and you doing so will give you an immediate competitive edge. An animated logo can describe your brand in a short an effective way, like nothing else.

When it comes to giving the right first impression to the customer, businesses spend millions to be considered unique. With an animated logo, your brand can be projected to the audience in the first few seconds of interaction.

Whatever your business niche, the viewer will immediately catch a vibe off the logo and will feel connected. Your consumers are being bombarded with countless bits of information, advertisements and logos on a daily basis. Your logo can stand out by being animated and gain the short attention span of a user.

Additionally, you will be many steps ahead of the competition if you are working on an animated logo to define your brand. The researchers from Boston College signaled that the low usage of animated logos in the industry can provide early adopters with competitive advantage. They looked at more than 400 commercials and found a small number of brands using animated logos. Therefore, this is the right time for you to utilize this opportunity.

Emotional trigger

Your viewers can feel the depth of an emotion through an animated logo. It works well when you keep the design simple. Well written textual content is also a very powerful way to evoke emotions in people, but an animated logo can overshadow that due to its visual imagery.

This is a good thing, because you can align your brand story with a creative animated logo to make people feel connected to the brand. This can trigger specific reactions in people who watch that logo.

Avoid lawsuits

Creative directors and designers spend months creating a timeless logo, only to discover that after the launch, somewhere, another corporation has an almost identical logo. This leads to lawsuits and lots of messy paperwork for both parties.

When MetLife launched its new logo and rebranded after three decades, they were immediately met with this misfortune. A company called Diffen already had a similar logo and called this an act of theft. The fashion brands Gucci and Chanel have similar logos and the logos of Bentley and Mini also have a similar winged symbol.

That’s why, it is time to move on from the static logo, and turn your logo into an animated masterpiece. Build a brand which is always alive and dynamic due to its logo. This way, you will avoid accidental copyright infringement and become a pioneer in your field as well.

Key Takeaways

Neuromarketing is a field of marketing which takes into account the responses of an individual when they are exposed to a marketing element. It is valuable to marketers because it finds out the true responses of potential buyers when they see a product, based on color or touch.
Logos can make use of neuromarketing to trigger certain emotions in the viewers. Businesses can tell their story in a better way by incorporating a creative logo.
Animated logos are the new tactic on the block, because they are more interactive and memorable than a static logo.
Object animated logos and agent animated logos are both useful in designing the perfect logo for your business. You must combine them with great content to accomplish the task of building good brand reputation.
Animated logos turn your brand identity stronger, so people can spot your business amidst a dozen static logos. They also have the potential to go viral, give your business a competitive edge and save your business from accidental trademark infringements.
Deliver great content along with your animated logo to build an effective brand strategy.