Some years back, I walked into a copy shop, only to notice that a middle aged woman had just contracted the replication of her company’s letterhead design – (of course this included duplicating the logo) – to the shops graphics guy. I took a quick glance at the logo and mumbled to myself, “only if the logo had been done by a professional…it would have been a little harder and more costly to replicate”.
It is common place for SMEs – founder and employees to think that a company’s proof of success is hinged only on quality of product or service delivery, increased patronage or “money in the bank”. This is a totally myopic view of a company’s real worth or value.
Let’s go to class on the subject of logic and critical thinking in just a bit to quickly highlight on the philosophical concept of causality. Causality (also referred to as causation or cause and effect) is the efficacy that connects one process (the cause) with another process or state (the effect), where the first is understood to be partly responsible for the second, and the second is dependent on the first.
Similarly a company’s logo is the cause of the unique differentiation and instant recognition of any organisation, product or service in the market place. It is the causal trigger of the remembrance and even subliminal conviction a person has about a product or service to prove that branding and marketing communications has worked.
The aforementioned hence provokes the need for employees to place value on this all important asset of goodwill, reason for patronage and emulsifier of success. As an employee you must know:
1. Your company logo is a property. And must be treated with respect and secured as such.
2. You must understand it as an important component of your company’s internal affairs with regards to how it impacts staff conformity to ethics, core values and even standard operating procedure (SOP) on one hand. And on the other hand, how all marketing, advertising, sales, brand and CEO’s personal communications (sight and sound) impact on the public, enough to secure the logo’s public image as part of your external affairs.
3. It is an asset that must always be represented accurately and consistently across all mediums as a matter of strict adherence. Failure to do this, renders it vulnerable to theft, misuse and identity crisis. Which in the end is bad for the company.
By Dayo Abiola.
