How Much Does Your Logo Actually Matter?

Pepsi's new look. How important is your logo? Not as important as the product or service you sell.

This week Pepsi said they will be changing the look of the Pepsi brand over the next few years. How much Pepsi is spending on this transformation I do not know, but I am sure it is millions of dollars.  This got me thinking about brands and branding and the link between your logo and success.

I like to consider myself an artist, and therefore love to design logos.  When launching my companies I have spent hours upon hours pondering over what to call my new ventures and what images should represent them. And I hate to admit that the amount of time I have spent coming up with the perfect logo could have much better been spent on marketing or selling my new products.  I, like many other entrepreneurs, have committed the all too common mistake of obsessing over my company’s logo and spending far too much time and energy making sure it is ‘perfect’.

If you are an entrepreneur and have just recently, or are in the process of, designing a logo, here is a wake up call for you.  Nobody cares if your logo is red or blue, a lobster or a crab, in italics or bold; ultimately, you will succeed not because you have a killer logo, but because you offer a superior product or service.

But this is not to say your logo is worthless, in fact your logo is an important part of your brands identity, so it is important to have a good logo.  But a good logo is not a complex logo, nor something that needs to cost a huge amount of money to develop. To illustrate, let’s look at the logos of some multi-billion dollar companies who either have very simple logos or logos that are simply the company name.  We don’t have to look at their logos; you should know the logo when you see the company name.

Microsoft
Exxon
Nike
Apple
McDonald’s

The above companies have extremely simple, memorable logos.  Microsoft’s logo is simply the company name in italics while McDonald’s is a golden ‘M’.  We buy these companies products not because of their logo, but because we either need or want what they are selling.

Sand Shack does not sell lobsters, but our simple logo accurately reflects our theme and mission.

So what should you look for when designing your logo?

1. Make it Memorable

2. Make it Unique

3. Keep it Simple

4.  Use Only One or Two Colors

5. Make Sure it Accurately Reflects Your Company

• It is important that your logo reflects what you are selling.  Sand Shack does not sell lobsters, but the blue lobster reflects the nautical theme all our products share as well as our central mission of ocean conservation.

6. Make it Versatile

• Think how it will appear on different surfaces, in grayscale, and on advertisements.

7. Don’t Pay Too Much

• Do it yourself or hire a design company to do it for you, but don’t pay more than a few hundred dollars.

So is Pepsi’s new logo a good change? It might be. And for them, spending millions of dollars on a new look may be worth it.  But most entrepreneurs should not waste too much time or money developing their logo.  Follow the above steps, get a good logo and then put all your time and energy into offering the best possible product or service you can; this is where the true value in your company lies.