Google announced today that it has changed its logo (see the before/after comparison here). While the shift may not be substantial, it did cause me to ponder the impact of a logo change. After all, some companies spend considerable amounts of money on logo redesigns. Does it matter at all? I found an article from several years ago in Business Week that addresses this topic. It describes research by Rice University Professor Vikas Mittal, West Virginia Professor Michael Walsh, and Penn State Professor Karen Winterish. The scholars found that customers with high brand commitment tend to have the most significant negative reaction to logo changes. These high commitment customers also reported that they would be less likely to buy that brand in the future. Casual customers did not have this type of strong adverse reaction to logo changes. Mittal explained how managers must apply this research as they redesign logos from time to time: "One strategy may be to manage the reactions and expectations of strongly committed consumers by actively soliciting their input and perhaps pre-notifying them before the changes are revealed to the broader public. Giving the strongly committed such a feeling of being an 'insider' may strengthen their self-brand connection and mitigate the potentially negative effects of logo redesign."
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