Because apparently changing the colour of a triangle is easier than improving customer service.
Somewhere, at this very moment, a business is spending an extraordinary amount of money redesigning its logo.
There are meetings. There are presentations. There are seventeen shades of blue, each representing a slightly different interpretation of trustworthiness.
Eventually, someone announces that the new logo better reflects the company’s values, ambitions and commitment to innovation.
The customers, meanwhile, are still waiting for someone to answer the telephone.
Welcome to the wonderful world of branding.
What Is a Brand, Really?
Let’s establish something important.
Your brand is not your logo.
Your logo is a visual symbol that helps people recognise your business.
Your brand is what people think, feel and expect when they encounter it.
It’s your reputation. Your customer experience. Your products. Your people. Your communication. Your reliability.
It’s the promises you make and, rather inconveniently, whether you actually keep them.
A beautifully designed logo paired with a dreadful customer experience is like putting a silk bow tie on a particularly unpleasant crocodile.
The presentation has improved.
The fundamental problem remains.
Why Do Businesses Confuse Branding With Design?
Partly because logos are wonderfully tangible.
You can see them. Change them. Put them on mugs. Present them to the board on a PowerPoint slide featuring the word “transformation.”
Reputation is rather more troublesome.
You can’t simply instruct customers to think you’re brilliant.
You have to give them reasons.
And those reasons often involve the deeply unfashionable business activities of delivering good products, treating people properly and doing what you said you’d do.
Which is much harder than selecting a new font.
Your Customer Experience Is Your Brand
Imagine two businesses.
The first has an immaculate visual identity, beautifully coordinated marketing materials and a website featuring photographs of attractive people pointing enthusiastically at laptops.
Unfortunately, its customer service is dreadful.
The second has a perfectly ordinary logo, a slightly dated website and staff who answer questions, solve problems and genuinely care about customers.
Which business has the stronger brand?
Quite possibly the second.
Because every interaction either strengthens or weakens your brand.
- A helpful conversation builds trust.
- A missed deadline damages it.
- A good product reinforces your reputation.
- An unanswered complaint can undo months of expensive marketing.
Customers don’t experience your brand guidelines.
They experience your business.
Your Employees Are Part of Your Brand Too
Your brand doesn’t live exclusively in the marketing department.
It lives in sales conversations, customer support, delivery vans, invoices, emails and the person who answers the telephone on a rainy Tuesday afternoon.
Everyone contributes to the impression customers form.
This means brand strategy isn’t simply about what your business looks like.
It’s also about how your business behaves.
You can spend six months deciding whether your brand personality should be bold, authentic or purpose-driven.
But if your staff have no idea what those words mean in practice, you’ve essentially produced an expensive collection of adjectives.
Congratulations.
You now have a very attractive document describing a business that may not actually exist.
Does That Mean Logos Don’t Matter?
Of course not.
A good logo matters. So do your colours, typography, website and visual identity.
They help people recognise, remember and distinguish your business.
But they’re only part of the picture.
Visual identity makes your brand recognisable. Experience and reputation make it meaningful.
The strongest brands bring these things together.
Their appearance, messaging, products, people and behaviour reinforce the same underlying promise.
Not because everything looks identical, but because everything feels connected.
Stop Asking Whether Your Logo Looks Right
Start asking whether your business is delivering the experience your brand promises.
- Do customers trust you?
- Would they recommend you?
- Do your employees understand what makes your business different?
- Does the experience of dealing with your company match the claims on your website?
These questions are rather less glamorous than discussing Pantone colours.
They’re also considerably more useful.
Because ultimately, your brand isn’t what you put on the side of your building.
It’s what people say about your business when you’re not there to explain the logo.
And if they’re saying terrible things, making the logo 15% bigger probably won’t help.
More Marketing Nonsense, Properly Examined
For more irreverent observations on branding, marketing strategy and the peculiar things businesses do in the name of consistency, listen to The Overthinker’s Guide to Modern Marketing Podcast.
Because marketing is complicated enough without confusing a corporate colour palette with an entire business strategy.
