Can you name a fast-food brand with golden arches and red background? What about a soda brand with a red and white palette and a swirly font? If you answered McDonald’s and Coca-Cola, then you’ve experienced the power of brand recognition first hand.

See how the colors play a big part in how easily you guessed the brands above? A study says color increases brand recognition by up to 80%, so that’s not surprising at all. 

Brand recognition is more than just the signage or packaging design, though both of those certainly count. In this article, we’ll discuss:

• Brand recognition vs. brand awareness
• Stages of brand recognition
• The secret to brand recognition
• How to optimize brand recognition

Read on until the end to get the lowdown on how you can gear your brand for better lead generation and increased sales rate. 

 

Brand Recognition vs. Brand Awareness

Though brand recognition is often confused with brand awareness, there are differences between the two. 

At its most basic, brand recognition is the extent to which the market can identify the brand based on its symbols and products. For instance, your custom logo design or your advertising design can automatically make your audience think about your brand. 

On the other hand, brand awareness is the extent to which the market can recall info, emotions, culture, and values associated with your brand. For example, many consumers associate Betty Crocker with home and family bonding over food.

In short, recognition (be it visual or verbal) is the first step that hopefully leads to awareness, which is knowing the heart and soul of the brand.

 

The Secret to Instant Brand Recognition

So, what’s the secret to instant brand recognition? Simple – graphic design. 

Your product appeals visually to your market so that they’ll recognize it and associate it with your brand. In fact, a study tells us that visual appeal can be assessed within 50 milliseconds. 

So, it’s vital to make sure that your branding assets display a good grasp of graphic design basics. By doing so, you’ll have better chances not only on recognition but recall as well.

 

How to Optimize Brand Recognition Through Graphic Design

But how exactly can you use graphic design to achieve your goal? Here are a few tried and tested techniques.

 

Put a Spotlight on the Brand Name

Look at the best brand recognition examples. You’ll see that a lot of them display a graphic design that highlights the brand name. 

Take Hershey’s Bar, for example. The brand name takes up almost the entire packaging surface, and it’s really hard to miss. Though it’s an extreme example, there are many ways to display the brand name without overwhelming the eyes. 

For instance, it’s a common practice to display the brand name above the product name. Such is the style used for the packaging of Hershey’s Kisses. The product itself is popular in its own right, but it still reminds shoppers of its maker.  

Many cake mix products also use the same layout, such as Pillsbury and Betty Crocker.

 

Highlight the Product

Your customer may not recall your brand or product name at first, but they’ll surely recall your product if they had a pleasant experience with it. That said, it’s a great idea to highlight the product on your packaging.

For instance, it’s much easier for shoppers to tell a butter pecan cake mix from a devil’s food cake mix if the packaging shows the product.

On the other hand, if your product is something you can showcase in its packaging, feel free to do so. You can use a packaging design with transparent parts that show the consumer exactly what’s inside. This is a common tactic for drugstore makeup packaging so that shoppers would see the shade they’re getting.   

 

Strengthen Product Positioning 

Before you put out your product in the market, there’s a big chance you’ve already sorted out your positioning. If you’re selling shampoo, for example, what’s your unique selling proposition (USP)? Is it a vegan and cruelty-free? Does it promise a salon-treated mane?  

When using graphic design to enhance recognition, take your USP, and use it on your visual assets. Keep in mind, however, that you don’t have to spell out everything. Otherwise, you’ll end up with a text-rich packaging. You can use icons with minimal text instead of several lines of copy to get your point across.

 

Offer Easily-Absorbed Info

Speaking of too much text, it’s always best to keep your copy succinct, concise, and direct-to-the-point. That applies whether you’re creating a marketing email, a social media post, an ad, or a packaging design.  

For instance, the best infographic examples show us text and image shouldn’t compete; instead, they should draw strength from each other. 

Let’s say you’re designing a brochure for a vitamin supplement and you wanted to let shoppers know that a tablet of the supplement contains 500 grams of vitamin C. Instead of writing it a long copy you can say that it has the same amount of Vitamin C as five oranges and use a combo of text and image to get your message across better.

 

Level Up Your Point of Purchase Power

Point of purchase (POP) marketing entails planning product placement at the time and place of the retail transaction. This usually involves product displays in supermarkets or placing flyers on the grocery shelves.

Point of sale, on the other hand, has a similar concept but mostly applies to check out for eCommerce stores. Making the most out of POP is one of the brand recognition strategies many marketers do.

Consider being a bit more creative with your display if you’re selling your product in a physical store. You can do so by incorporating elements that will make a mark on your audience. By doing so, you’re giving shoppers that final nudge to reach for your product instead of the others.

 

Conclusion

With almost every industry hosting a fierce competition among brands in the digital age, having a brand recognition marketing strategy in place will surely help. 

Strong identity and positioning are crucial, but it’s not the be-all and end-all of building a brand. These efforts should meld with excellent graphic design and creative execution to make the brand shine bright against the rest.