Every business operating in the United States should be aware of one important fact. The U.S. is home to one of the most lucrative advertising industries in the world. In 2023 alone, the projected amount of revenue spent on advertising will land just south of 300 billion dollars. It’s safe to say that if you’re not investing in some type of advertising or marketing campaign, you’re behind the curve.
While the aforementioned sounds easy enough in theory, here’s the thing about advertising. Depending on how sophisticated you want to get, advertising campaigns can be extremely expensive. Moreover, even if you work with elite advertising firms, and funnel a sizable chunk of change into your campaigns, there is no guarantee that they will be lucrative.
Furthermore, not everyone can afford a fancy and elaborate ad campaign. Realistically, many of the businesses that serve as the backbone of this country are not major conglomerates or corporations. Additionally, if you’re a brand-new business (a small one at that) you’re likely in the beginning stages of establishing a foundation.
Now, you might find yourself wondering, what does all of this have to do with brand recognition? And moreover, how does all of this tie into signage and graphics? In this post, we’ll answer that question and more, as we dive deeper into the world of brand recognition and sign design.
What is Brand Recognition?
Before we discuss the relations between advertising, brand recognition, and signage, let’s first define brand recognition. Defining brands is simple enough, your brand is a combination of several characteristics that make up your business. It’s more than a logo, and it’s more than what your business offers and/or sells. In reality, your brand is a culmination of names, catchphrases, logos, taglines, personality, philosophy, and values. These are just a few of the traits that make up your brand.
As for brand recognition? Brand recognition is the ability for consumers to easily identify your brand by its attributes. How can you tell if you have strong brand recognition? Typically, a good litmus test is if people are able to identify your business based on certain cues, like an audio clip, logo, slogan, packaging, etc. Brand recognition can be elevated using different techniques, including signage.
How Developing Strong Signage, Graphics, and Imagery Translates into Brand Recognition
Certain voices might lead you to believe that launching massive ad campaigns is the best way to cultivate strong brand recognition. While this is true to some extent, as ad campaigns can often gain notice and notoriety by themselves, brand recognition is far too complex to be reduced to a singular ad campaign. Brand recognition is really about the culmination of various factors, including the signs, graphics, decals, and imagery that your company utilizes.
How do signage and graphics affect brand recognition? For starters, a lot of brand recognition is sparked and solidified by memorable content. To illustrate this point, let’s use some real-world examples. In these examples, instead of naming the company, we’ll describe some of the most popular pop culture logos and catchphrases and see if you can identify the company by those clues alone.
- Which company is known for its golden arches?
- Which company is known for their catchphrase ‘just do it’?
- What destination is known as “the happiest place on earth?
- Which energy drink is known for “giving you wings?”
How many of these companies were you able to recognize, if any? For those who weren’t able to answer each question, or for those who want to simply check their answers, here they are:
- The golden arches are the logo of McDonald’s.
- The company known for its ‘just do it’ catchphrase is Nike.
- The happiest place on earth AKA Disneyland’s Magic Kingdom
- The energy drink that ‘gives you wings’ is Red Bull.
The aforementioned examples illustrate the power of branding. This is why graphic design firms and companies often work tirelessly with their clients to come up with creative branding. If you can achieve recognition off of an image or a catchphrase alone, you will most certainly find longevity in your business.
How Signs and Graphic Designs Impact Your Brand
Before you can successfully cultivate a strong sense of brand recognition, you have to first establish the images, catchphrases, and slogans that will inevitably make up your brand. Signage is one of the most cost-effective and smart ways to go about this process and here’s why.
Next time you walk down the street in a commercial area, take a minute to look at your surroundings. What types of signs are you seeing on or in businesses? Which type of signs stand out to you? Do you like the look of dimensional letters, something with depth? Or do you find a classic wrought iron post and panel sign to be notably charming? Once you’ve identified what signage you like, think for a moment about what judgments or thoughts pop into your head, and how those relate to the company in question.
For instance, let’s say you come across a business with a very interesting logo that sticks in your mind. Based on that alone, you might think that the business is very creative, or you might notice all of the work that went into a certain sign, leading you to believe that the company takes pride in its appearance, and likely most aspects of its operation. See, the thing is, it doesn’t matter if these judgments are ultimately correct or not, it just matters that they occurred to you. And while you may not visit this business at the time you see it, that memorable logo might pop into your head one day, eventually prompting you to take a visit.
A Signage and Graphic Solutions Company Can Help You Strengthen Your Brand
It’s important to note that brand recognition doesn’t happen overnight. Even though McDonald’s is now a globally recognized conglomerate, it was at one point just a basic town burger joint. Ultimately, consistency in brand recognition is key, and a good place to begin crafting that image is to find a sign and graphics firm with experience, that can help you create your own brand identity with the help of signage, decals, wraps, and much more.
