I wanted to blog about something that I’ve noticed is becoming more and more common a request from our clients. The inclusion of a logo design with their website.
Now, that’s not an unreasonable request – in fact it’s something we’re happy to look at. However, what is worrying me is that the majority of clients are considering their logo/brand as an afterthought. Further more they aren’t always willing to put any extra budget behind it.
Common requests are along the lines of: ‘It just needs to be text.’, ‘Nothing too complicated – a quick logo’ or ‘I don’t care as long as it fits with the website’.
What really gets to me is the seeming lack of value people are placing in their brand/logo. Despite me giving most of them ‘the talk’ about the importance of branding the majority seem reluctant to attribute time or budget to getting it correct.
Anyway, I’ve always been of the opinion that you can’t skimp on brand, it’s the first point of contact a client will have with you and is how you’ll come to be recognised. I have to say that our design team has worked wonders with little/no budget - coming up with amazing logos time and time again. (Below are a few of my favourites – I must note that a couple of these did have a small budget behind them.)
What I really want to know is, from those of you who are business owners and have a brand of your own, where does it fit in your priorities (be honest!)? And to those of you who are designers/webbies – do you get similar requests for logos to be ‘included’ as an afterthought with other design? How do you deal with it?
Yes, this is really common.
The best way I’ve found to convey the value of branding is to put it in the context of potential revenue (both lost and gained )- the client probably doesn’t understand the branding process but they do understand money, so much so that they tend to focus on the outgoing cost of the branding at first, and nothing else.
Show the client two adverts for a fictional product/company, identical in every way except for the branding. Ensure that one advert is professionally branded and the other looks like it’s been done on the cheap. Ask them which product/company they would instinctively choose to spend their money on/with, given that everything else is equal. Encourage them to take the examples away with them, show it to their family & friends and ask them the same question, but before they leave really drive it home that for each person who chooses the ‘branded’ company, it’s a lost sale for the ‘non-branded’ company. Which company do they want to be?
I think that for many customers branding is initially seen as little more than a few colour changes, a bit of text and maybe a graphic, but when they start to see it in terms of lost/gained revenue then they stop concentrating on the outgoing cost and start calculating the potential ROI.
as a small business owner and IT consultancy, I am guilty of breaking the golden rule, I’ve taken my website down while I sit back and re-evaluate what I want to convey. When I initially had my business logo designed I had the designers work with me to put thought behind it in reference to the company name/colours/business type, and I like what I got and I put enough budget behind it to get what I want done well (other options, mockup, changes, etc). The issue I have now is that the cost of utilising that logo into the brand in web terms is out of control and appears to be a cash cow for web businesses in the current climate. I’m considering where to put my money to get my web presence re-created in line with my technical needs as well as off line presence (cards/literature/etc) and the prices I am being quoted is fantasy, more so as the scam appears to be creating themes for well know open source CMS systems and trying to sell it as a “package” to me. These people forget I work in IT and I’m well aware of what is being done, the area my business lacks is the graphical part of the web business or design part of the branding part – that’s not what I do, but design agencies are too busy trying to con me with what they are doing to actually delivery what I want and make the money.
In short – I invested money in the logo and branding (and yes over the years I now need a tweak or two) but the agencies I’ve had contact with have not gained my trust, so I’m left in limbo unable to spend money and re-create my online presence.
I can see how others “don’t care” or “just want it simple” due to the nonsense a lot of design/web agencies are pushing and the over selling of product/services that are just fabricated.