This Brand Is Inspirational: The Influence of Logo Shapes

摘要

Companies could spend millions of dollars to design a new logo or to renovate an existing one for growing business domestically and internationally (Jiang and Gorn et al., 2016). Besides, companies and brands could benefit from the inspirational images when consumers are seeking for changes, for hopes, and/or for better future, because of the fit between the brand images and the needs and wants of consumers. Surprisingly, the literature is still silent on how logo can make consumers perceive that the brand is inspirational. Therefore, in this paper, we attempt to demonstrate how different combinations of logo shapes could become influential in the brand personality judgment and make brands become inspirational. Especially, very few studies have noticed the effect of different size (large or small) or shape (angular or circular) combination in logos. Would the combinations of different logo shapes polarize or compromise the brand inspiration perception? Inspiration has been developed as a new psychological construct and defined as a motivation state that energizes and directs one's behavior (Thrash and Elliot, 2003, 2004). Liang, Chen and Let (2016) found that victims in donation appeals could inspire consumers to make better evaluation of the donation appeals and even donate more to the victims by eliciting a combination of sadness and strength emotions.