The Cognitive Link Between Branding and Consumer Expectations
The human brain forms judgment on other humans with respect to character traits like friendliness, trustworthiness, and even competence in as little as 1/10th of a second. Think the same isn’t true for your business?
At Greyfound Design, we like to say that your logo is your smile, and your branding is your personality. We believe that your logo and branding give your potential clients enough information for their brain to “fill in the gaps” on everything else they need to know about your business. If you think that is scary, consider that science also tells us that once these initial judgments are formed, they are very difficult to alter – even when we humans are presented with additional information that directly contradicts our initial judgment. Our brains think they are pretty smart and they do not like to be wrong. That is why it is critical that your logo and branding tell the right story.
Let's see if you can "fill in the gaps" on the stories behind the logos of three Greyfound Design clients below. We bet that just by seeing the logo you can correctly identify the physical storefront and customer descriptions of these three Italian restaurants in Connecticut.
Here are the logos:
Guess which storefront belongs to Bari 167, Mario the Baker, and Via Sforza:
Now guess which description matches Bari 167, Mario the Baker, and Via Sforza:
We bet the logos above were enough for you to correctly guess the physical appearance and customer descriptions for each of these three restaurants in a few seconds. Every day your potential clients are forming judgments about your business based on your logo and branding. We recommend all of our clients perform an honest assessment of whether they are "telling the right story" and make adjustments if they aren't.
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