MOCCA STUDIO | Logo Critique

Status
Not open for further replies.
One more thing - do all the members here spend time on their brand? Do you all have unique branding? Does this branding pull in more new business?

I use to have branding. I took it all away and it made zero difference to my business. It may be different if your products are in the supermarket but even then, brands often change their branding.

When I say branding is not important - I mean the details don't matter. Coke is red and black, pepsi is blue and silver. That's all you see when you are in the drinks aisle.
If you're going to say details don't matter at least get the details right... :rolleyes:

coke or more accurately coca cola is red and WHITE....a very specific shade of red as well.
coke zero is black and red, although that likely is being marketed more these days due to the sugar tax.


Pepsi is blue red and white, hell we even had a post about their logo a short while ago.. I don't know, sounds more like your memory than anything :p.


As to branding, as I'm in the process of updating mine, yes I do take time regarding my brand, my logo, it's being simplified but it still is 'relevant'
 
I would say the marketing guys at Coca Cola would disagree - details do matter!

You're buying their promise. And part of that is the details are right. From the design, to the price, to the taste, to the quality of the products.
 
If I picked up a can of Coca-Cola and it said Cock-a-Cola - would I buy it? Probably for a photo op.
But I'd still rather a can that wasn't called Cock.

Details.

Speaking of cocks anyone remember when this Coca-Cola designer did this?

The designer got fired.

1616417996710.png

 
I disagree Marketing is the most important thing a business can do. Branding is just one part of the marketing plan.
 
I disagree Marketing is the most important thing a business can do. Branding is just one part of the marketing plan.
What do you market if you don't have a brand... if you don't have a brand it's just another generic item and it would be lost within the hundreds of other competing products.
 
No you have that backwards.

How the heck can you market a brand you haven't branded yet?
Advertising, Google search, social media, email drop. Loads of ways to market a business. You don't need branding for any of these.

I'm looking for a new garage door and using Google maps. I'm reading reviews without seeing any branding. Their phone number is published so I don't even need to look at their website.

I have a client who uses Instagram to promote new products. No branding anywhere - just the stories. When the link to the product page on the website there is logo top left. Everything else is standard wordpress.
What do you market if you don't have a brand... if you don't have a brand it's just another generic item and it would be lost within the hundreds of other competing products.
You are anyway. Do Google search for just about anything and you won't see any branding. You choose where to click based on the marketing message.

Which brings me back to a question I asked earlier, how many of you have developed a brand for themselves? How many of you stand out from the crowd because of your branding? I'd check but you are all very anonymous - can't find you anywhere. Hank has two clues in his profile neither of which lead anywhere.
 
Well I designed my profile that way so I can't be tracked. I don't want to be either. I had a horrible experience years ago when someone found my identity online and I had to get the police involved.

I bet you every single one of those companies have branding in their website/pages etc.
According to you - don't bother with the branding - but at the end of the day it draws you one way or the other.


I take your point about a google search - same thing if you looked up a phone book - you are looking for someone in your area. Hardly any point in finding a Garage Door sales guy that lives 500 miles away.
So you're search is down to locality. And fitting a garage door is pretty much the same experience from one place to the next.

You rely on reviews/ratings etc. to narrow down your search.

Taking your approach for Garage Doors - I've found some in my area.
I click through the websites - some are just awful - terrible pictures, branding is awful, no logo, no information.

I come across a nice website - it looks good, it looks professional - I'll probably go with that, get in touch.
Find another 2 websites that I like and easy to get in touch with - I'll ask them too.

The one I found with just text and says 'Installation Garage Doors' I won't use that one.


I mean - you wouldn't let your kids near this van
1616425327186.png


But you would this van

1616425400722.png


I had this with you before - the gardening services - 3 people came out to price - I found them all on the internet, same to finding a garage door.
Of the 3 that came out - one was extremely professoinal, branding, pens, t-shirts, nice van, clean looking.
The other 2 guys arrived in battered vans, no branding.

I went with the guy that invested in his look and his business and he did a great job.
But I lost hope in the other guys - they didn't look professional .


Here's a google search for new runners

Instantly hit with images and branding.


Another one


Nice tea cups

Instantly hit with the maker and where to buy them - who stocks them etc.


That's because they paid google to put their images up their first.
That's how google makes money - from advertising.

If a garage door sales team wanted - they could pay google to have their images who up first on the search - even their logo if they wanted.
 
  • Like
Reactions: G.A
You are anyway. Do Google search for just about anything and you won't see any branding. You choose where to click based on the marketing message.
Um...assuming you're looking for something you can hire or purchase every single 'business' or 'product' in that list will likely have branding attached to either the business or the item being sold... same with a phone directory with only businesses listed in them, they will all have branding attached, whether that be just their name or a business name.

And lets be honest google will manipulate their search results (quite regularly) to maximise their profits, they are an advertising company which uses other services for data gathering and sales. Also remember results will vary with google as they like to 'personalise' them to you and your area.

If branding wasn't important why do companies spend so much and why are their sites like trustpilot which is entirely about leaving feedback on a brand/business.... and I've had 'requests' for me to leave feedback on trustpilot (or similar) from multiple sites so clearly a positive image of a brand is important.

And just a quick question...do you search for hoover or vacuum? One is a brand and one is a description but just like google it's become synonymous with a category of product.... I bet a large number of people search for hoover before vacuum so clearly the branding failed :rolleyes:

Which brings me back to a question I asked earlier, how many of you have developed a brand for themselves? How many of you stand out from the crowd because of your branding? I'd check but you are all very anonymous - can't find you anywhere. Hank has two clues in his profile neither of which lead anywhere.
Considering that I work primarily under NDA's the fact I'm 'anonymous' is pretty appropriate and 'working quietly in the background' can actually be part of a brand.

Like Hank, while I've linked stuff in the past but am a lot more 'privacy focused' (shockingly another part of the 'branding') than I used to be.
You wouldn't get much out of me to start with (to give you an idea...I felt the census was too intrusive...) and to be fair I never really bought into facebook etc so you'd have a hard time finding me at the best of times lol.


Oh and can I just point out something.... you didn't say web search, you said GOOGLE search.... branding doesn't work in the slightest lol
 
@hankscorpio - the gardener you chose had branding. You agreed that it didn’t matter what the branding was, it was just he had some and the others didn’t. This is the point I’m trying poorly to make. The details don’t matter. It’s the overall impression that sells.

In an earlier post someone discussed emotion. This is a powerful marketing tool. Your emotion is affected by the marketing message not the colour of the logo. When you watch an Audi advert you often don’t see the logo until the very end. Watch the fabreeze advert, the message is smells and then the means to remove them. I’ve got no idea what the bottle looks like, I just remember the name.
 
@hankscorpio - the gardener you chose had branding. You agreed that it didn’t matter what the branding was, it was just he had some and the others didn’t. This is the point I’m trying poorly to make. The details don’t matter. It’s the overall impression that sells.

In an earlier post someone discussed emotion. This is a powerful marketing tool. Your emotion is affected by the marketing message not the colour of the logo. When you watch an Audi advert you often don’t see the logo until the very end. Watch the fabreeze advert, the message is smells and then the means to remove them. I’ve got no idea what the bottle looks like, I just remember the name.
You're so far off the mark it's getting ridiculous now.

It's been proven time after time that colour evokes emotion - there's literally a 1000000 websites that give you the breakdown on how colour evokes emotion.

It's actually what artists have done since the beginning of time with paint, used it to evoke emotion.


Emotion can be affected by the marketing message - can be. But it's not always true.


With cars they are selling an experience - same with Febreeze.

But back to your original statement - that the Marketing comes first.
It does in it's arse! The branding comes first - always.
Then the marketing messages are built from the brand messaging.

That's how it works.

You have often said you're not a designer - so i don't know why you continue to argue with us that are designers.


There is no company in the world that developed a marketing strategy without first developing a brand.
 
I know I’m not a designer. And I agree colour can affect emotion, but not in isolation. It has to be accompanied with something. Red is associated with passion. But a red rose evokes a different emotion to Ferrari or blood. It’s the colour used in context.

And I still disagree that branding comes be for marketing. You have to develop a strategy, indentify the target, define scope and so on all before you choose the colour. Marketing begins before the product specification. It’s what you do as soon as the idea is born.

Coca-Cola didn’t design the logo then the bottle and think about what to put in the bottle. They began with a product and decided to market it as medicinal. After that they created the marketing material which included their branding.
 
Look you have it slightly backwards.

Yes, product development and creating a product to sell.
There are many things to consider.

What is it? Who wants it? How will it be distributed? How much etc.
Who is it for and all that.

There's a bit of 'marketing' thinking going on before you go to a brand designer.
Right - that's true.

But it's a pre-marketing strategy - they know what they want to say but not how they want to say it.


That's where the branding comes in.
The brand is developed off the back the pre-marketing or whatever you want to call it.
You can't do a brand without a brief - and the brand is developed off what the client says.

Who it is for, who wants it, how much they get, why they get, why they want it, what age group etc.


But you can't do actual marketing without a brand or brand strategy.
Well you can - but people don't.

It's quite the opposite - people often go off a brand strategy with minimal marketing.
 
I know I’m not a designer.
Yet you keep arguing with designers who do know about this stuff and know exactly how much of a difference branding can have....


And I agree colour can affect emotion, but not in isolation. It has to be accompanied with something. Red is associated with passion. But a red rose evokes a different emotion to Ferrari or blood. It’s the colour used in context.
There is so much psychology linked to colours in design.... did you know that certain colours are used in restaurants/bars because they encourage us to eat/drink more and some colours are never used because it does the opposite. There are years and years of study on how colours affect a person.


Coca-Cola didn’t design the logo then the bottle and think about what to put in the bottle. They began with a product and decided to market it as medicinal. After that they created the marketing material which included their branding.
That's how most things work.... you have to have a product first (well not the 'first' step but it is in this reference), it doesn't work any other way and I should know seeing as that's the area of design I work with.

You can't compare pre 1900's to the current day, back in those days 'medicine' was a new thing to them and using it to sell things was a very early approach to marketing.

Now if you look into the early designs of coke bottles you will see they actually do have the coca cola logo on the bottle, yes the curvy bottle came later but part of that is due to manufacturing and the changing of the marketing from a medicine to a 'recreational beverage'. If you look at the bottle shapes it went from the 'medicine' bottle to a 'beer' bottle and then to the curvy design we know today.
 
There is so much psychology linked to colours in design.... did you know that certain colours are used in restaurants/bars because they encourage us to eat/drink more and some colours are never used because it does the opposite. There are years and years of study on how colours affect a person.
I totally agree with you. But you don't start with a colour and then decide what product to make. This is why I say marketing comes first.
That's how most things work.... you have to have a product first (well not the 'first' step but it is in this reference), it doesn't work any other way and I should know seeing as that's the area of design I work with.
Exactly! Your marketing strategy will determine the branding.

Ferarri didn't start with the prancing pony and red. He began with the car. The marketing becan with the shape, the sound, the performance. With these in place they could think about how to sell the things. The original colour was yellow - red came later because that was the colour allocated to Italy. Nothing to do with branding and emotion.
 
But you don't start with a colour and then decide what product to make. This is why I say marketing comes first.
No - that's where you're mixed up.
You don't do any marketing first. You make a product and that's it.
Then you think about what way to market it and how you see it being marketed taking in considerations.

You take those considerations and conversations to the brand.

And then using the brand you create marketing material.
 
But you don't start with a colour and then decide what product to make. This is why I say marketing comes first.
No you start with designing a product to fill a need (ie you fulfil the brief)....
Now they might have market research (no point selling teen items to pensioners) but research into a market is not the same as developing a marketing strategy, that can only be done once you've decided on the brand.


Exactly! Your marketing strategy will determine the branding.
No, that is not what I said and you know it.


Ferarri didn't start with the prancing pony and red. He began with the car. The marketing becan with the shape, the sound, the performance. With these in place they could think about how to sell the things. The original colour was yellow - red came later because that was the colour allocated to Italy. Nothing to do with branding and emotion.
The change to (burgundy) red WAS a branding thing, it was just for Italy (national racing colour) rather than just Ferrari, although it has become the 'ferrari red' colour in the years since due to f1 etc.
There's entire articles on why the colours were picked and they even state that the yellow was picked due to the symbolic association with the location that ferrari was founded... so emotion was involved.



You've got multiple designers telling you you're wrong....
 
That branding is part of marketing? How is this wrong?
Because you have it the wrong way around – as has been said.

Brand is the culture of the company or organisation. It exists already.

Branding is the visual (and every other) representation of that brand identity. It’s tone of voice (excuse the over-simplification).

Only once that has been completed and you have established who you want to talk to, does marketing kick in. Marketing is the methodology of communication. It Is the message delivery, not the message.

Of course there is a crossover once the brand is established, but everything marketing does has to adhere to the brand‘s tone of voice. Until you have established your tone of voice, you have nothing to say, or rather you won’t know how to say it. You will never be speaking to the people you want to.

Hope this helps make things a bit clearer.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top