Last October, in Part II I posted about the Gap logo fiasco. In that post I mentioned that most logo redesigns are failures. Further to that comes research from Vikas Mittal, a professor of marketing at Rice University, who, along with two others, conducted two studies dealing specifically with consumer reaction to logos.
Among other things, the studies revealed:
- The higher the consumer’s commitment to the brand, the more negative the consumer’s reaction to any changes in the logo design.
- A logo change elicited three times more negative thoughts among strongly committed consumers than among consumers with weak commitment to the brand
- After a change in a logo, strongly committed consumers held a more negative attitude of the brand than consumers who had low brand commitment.
Conclusion: If you want to alienate your most loyal customers, rebrand and relaunch. Maybe that explains the need to resign.
Mitch
