Committed customers don’t like logo redesigns: Study
By ANIWednesday, January 12, 2011
WASHINGTON - A new research has found that loyal customers who are strongly committed to a brand react more negatively toward logo redesigning, while more casual customers typically view the redesigns as a positive development.
Brands like Starbucks gain much of their strength from consumers who feel a personal connection to the brand. However, it’s these same passionate brand fans that react negatively to logo changes, and in the case of Starbucks, took to social networking websites to express their negative feelings about the change.
“Most companies presume that their most precious customers-those having strong brand commitment-will be more accommodating to changes,” the researchers write.
“Our results show this is likely a mistaken assumption-one that can alienate the core, the most committed of a brand’s customers.”
To test their hypothesis, Karen Winterich, assistant professor of marketing at Penn State’s Smeal College of Business and her colleagues examined how 632 undergraduate students responded to logo redesigns for Adidas and New Balance athletic shoes. They had a professional graphic designer create two new versions of each brand’s logo, one slightly modified from the original and the second one considerably more so. Each participant was surveyed about their brand commitment and attitude after viewing the original logo and then again after viewing one of the redesigns.
“Those with strong brand commitment will see the original brand logo-and the associations-as representing themselves and the integral relationship they have with the brand,” the researchers write.
“They are likely to view a change in the logo, which affects these associations, as threatening their self-brand connections and relationships. Consequently, such consumers will be negatively disposed to the logo change and likely to evaluate the logo negatively.”
Their study, “Do Logo Redesigns Help or Hurt Your Brand? The Role of Brand Commitment,” has been published in the Journal of Product and Brand Management. (ANI)
