Buyology: The Logo is Broken

Martin Lindstrom’s Buyology is a fascinating study of what actually drives purchasing decisions – and the news for brand managers is not good.

The central finding: logos don’t work the way we think they do. In neuromarketing studies, logos generated almost no emotional response. What generated emotional response was the brand’s deeper associations – the rituals, the stories, the communities, the sensory experiences.

Harley-Davidson’s logo generates little. But the sound of a Harley engine, the brotherhood of riders, the ritual of the open road – these generate enormous emotional response.

The implication: the logo is a shorthand. It only works when there’s something behind it. A logo attached to nothing is worthless.

For most organisations, the question should not be ‘is our logo right?’ It should be ‘what experiences, rituals, and communities are we building that our logo points to?’

The logo is the last thing you design. The meaning is the first.