The effects of logo frame design on brand extensions
| Pages | 97-113 |
| Date | 08 July 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBM-12-2017-1698 |
| Published date | 08 July 2019 |
| Author | Yu-Shan Athena Chen,Lien-Ti Bei |
The effects of logo frame design on
brand extensions
Yu-Shan Athena Chen
Department of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, and
Lien-Ti Bei
Department of Business Administration, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan
Abstract
Purpose –The purposes of two experiments were to examine how brands may create a broad brand impression and benefit brand extensions by
crafting logo frames.
Design/methodology/approach –Two experimental studies were conducted. Study 1 examines how removing and breaking logo frames expands
perceived brand breadth. Study 2 considers the implication of this logo frame effect and indicates the impact of logo frames on brand extens ion
scenarios.
Findings –Removing and breaking logo frames could expand perceived brand breadth and, in turn, benefits the brand extensions, especially for
promotion-focused consumers. However, prevention-focused people held favorable brand extension attitudes when the bra nd logo constructs a
complete frame due to its perceived trustworthiness.
Research limitations/implications –As an initial exploration, this study conceptualizes and manipulates logo frames as full framed, partial framed
and open logo. Future research studies could include further design features in the examination.
Practical implications –If a brand seeks to be broad, removing or breaking its logo frame is an alternative. However, consequential negative
impressions on brand extension attitudes among prevention-focused customers should be considered.
Originality/value –This study is the first investigation into the impacts of logo frame patterns on consumers’perception of brand breadth and the
consequent extension attitudes.
Keywords Brand image, Brand extension, Regulatory focus, Logo design, Logo frame
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The logo frame (i.e. logo with or withoutoutline) is one of the
most design features in logo design (Bresciani and Paolo,
2017). In Citroën’s logo design history, to take one branding
example, the double chevron was embedded into an oval frame
in its first iteration but was then later removed from the frame
in 1959. Citroën’s current emblem, introduced in 2009, is
silver with black shades and with the frame removed. Cadillac
had a framed logo in 1995 and changed it intoan incompletely
framed logo in 2014. The incompletelyframed logo was further
moved in 2014. Such logo frame revisionscould also be found
in Dodge, Lexus and Volvo.
One case especially attracted our attention: Starbucks’
renewal of its logo. In January 2011, Starbucks removed the
circle surroundingthe Siren and dropped the words “Starbucks
coffee.”Coinciding with the launch of its new logo, the coffee
giant announced:
We’ve given the Siren a small but meaningful update to ensure that the
Starbucks brand continues to embrace our heritage in ways that are true to
our core values and that also ensure we remain relevant and poised for
future growth [...] We made this change to support our strategic and
business decisions (Kavilanz, 2011).
While Starbucks did not obviously offer any detail at that
moment, it soon expandedits juice, bakery and tea business by
acquiring EvolutionFresh (Cannold, 2011;Isidore, 2012), Bay
Bread (Tadena, 2012) and Teavana Tea (Fox, 2012).
Starbucks’new unframedlogo was then applied to its new non-
coffee products. Starbucks’logo renewal and brand extension
strategy inspired our research interest in whether removing or
Thecurrentissueandfulltextarchiveofthisjournalisavailableon
Emerald Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/1061-0421.htm
Journal of Product & Brand Management
29/1 (2020) 97–113
Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 1061-0421]
[DOI 10.1108/JPBM-12-2017-1698]
© Yu-Shan Athena Chen and Lien-Ti Bei. Published by Emerald
Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute,
translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial
and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original
publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at
http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
The authors sincerely appreciate Ministry of Science and Technology,
Taiwan for research funding (Grant No. MOST 104-2410-H-004-128), as
well as brandsoftheworld.com and logologo.com provided the logo
elements in creating our stimuli in Study 1.
Received 8 December 2017
Revised 24 May 2018
26 August 2018
17 February 2019
16 May 2019
Accepted 23 May 2019
97
adding the logo frame impacts consumers’acceptability of
brand extension.
Research indicated that a logo frame was tied to the meaning
of structure, trustworthiness and protection; but it could also
lead to a sense of confinement (Fajardo et al., 2016;
Cutright, 2012), depending on a consumer’sneed for safety. A
high need for safety, e.g. a lack of personal control in Cutright
(2012) or a high perceived risk in Fajardoet al. (2016), directed
consumers to associate a logo frame with a sense of structure
and protection. In contrast, when consumers had a low need
for safety, a sense of confinementwas generated. The pursuit of
safety (as opposed to nutrition) coincided with one’s
prevention focus (as opposed to promotion focus) in a self-
regulation system (Higgins, 1997). Consumers’regulatory
focus was also observed to moderate if brands with complete
typeface logos were perceived to be more trustworthy but less
innovative than those with incomplete ones (Hagtvedt, 2011).
Therefore, a consumer’s regulatory focus is included in the
current study to revealindividual differences with respect to the
reaction to the logo frame effect.
Based on the above concerns, two studies were conducted.
Study 1 examined logo frames’effects on the perceived brand
breadth. The brand impressionbased on the presence of a logo
frame was illustrated as the mechanism of this effect.
Consumers’regulatory focus was also included to reveal their
individual differences. The brand breadth in Study 1 formed
the foundation of brand extension. Building on the findings of
the first study, Study 2 examined logo frames’influences on
brand extension attitudes along with the differences in
consumers’regulatory focus. The logo frame effect on brand
breadth shall provide managerial insights for logo design on
brand extensionstrategies.
Theoretical background
Based on the purposes of this study, we first reviewed the
design of logo frames,and then the influence of visual closeness
vs openness on the breadth of consideration sets. The
regulatory focus effect was then introduced as a moderator, as
inspired by Hagtvedt(2011) and Fajardo et al. (2016).
Logo design
Brand logos are complex stimuli composed of multiple visual
features through which the meaning of a brand is
communicated. Extant branding literature has touched upon
examining logo designs and their consequences. The
investigated features were shape (circular vs angular, Jiang
et al., 2016; square vs strip, Zhong et al.,2018), color (colored
vs black, Bresciani and Paolo, 2017;Hynes, 2009;Jin, Yoon
and Lee, 2019), typeface (complete vs incomplete, Hagtvedt,
2011), outline (with vs without, Fajardo et al.,2016) and
blankness (with vs without white space, Sharma and Varki,
2018). Furthermore, Henderson and Cote (1998) set a
milestone in identifying the higher-level design principles that
could affect consumer responses. Following their work,
scholars continue examining the consequences of logo
complexity (van Grinsvenand Das, 2016), proportion (Narelle
et al., 2007), symmetry (Luffarelli et al.,2019), stability
(Rahinel and Nelson, 2016), force (Baxter and Ilicic, 2018),
naturalness (Machado et al.,2015) and animation (Brasel and
Hagtvedt, 2016). For example, Foroudi, Melewar and Gupta
(2014) indicated that logo design and typefacecould influence
the recognizability and familiarity of the logo, and further
enhance the corporate image. Specifically,Bresciani and Paolo
(2017) noted that one-fifth of consumers used an outline,
frame or colored background to distinguish logos. Despite its
salience, the effect of the logo frame on brand perception has
rarely been investigated.
Logo frame design
There are in effect an infinite variety of possible patterns for a
logo frame; broadly speaking, a logo frame pattern can be
divided into three types of pattern, namely: the completely
framed (i.e. with a complete frame), incompletely framed (i.e.
with parts of the frame blanked out) or open (i.e. without a
frame at all).
Research has acknowledged that visual closure is associated
with confinement. Meyers-Levy and Zhu (2007) focused on
ceiling height and found thata relatively low ceiling (eight-foot
ceiling) activated a sense of confinement. However, a
high ceiling (ten-foot ceiling) could remove such confinement
and activate a sense of freedom. The former case of the low
ceiling also corresponded to a closed visual image as, for
instance, in a framed logo design. This sense of confinement
itself led to “an item-specific process,”namely, a mental
operation whereby the viewer entails the encoding of the
context-specific details possessed by each individual item. In
the latter situation, the high ceiling corresponded to an open
visual image and encouraged what can be called “relational
elaboration.”Relational elaboration entails association with
multiple individual itemsin a liberal and uninhibitedfashion so
that the commonalities or abstract concepts shared among the
items could be identified and grouped easily (Einstein and
Hunt, 1980;Meyers-Levy, 1991). In other words, openingup
the visual image leads to relational elaboration, and thereby,
generates more connectionsbetween unrelated items, while the
closed visual image induces a sense of confinement that
correspondingly leads to item-specific process, and therefore,
generates limited associations between items. Paralleling this
study, Fajardo et al. (2016) also found that a logo frame was
tied to confinement and removing the visual closure of a logo
frame had similar freedom effects found in Meyers-Levy and
Zhu (2007). In the present study,the removal or breaking up of
logo frames are expected to encourage relational elaboration
and activate greater item diversity, whereas framed logos
should be related to confinement and activate smaller item
diversity, as discussedin the next section.
Logo frame effects on the perceived brand breadth
Brand breadth refers to the product variabilityrepresented by a
brand name (Boush and Loken, 1991). For example, Miele,
which offers diverse kitchenwares and appliances, has a broad
brand breadth, whereas Zwillingfocuses on being an excellent
knife manufacturer and has a narrow brand breadth.Literature
has showed that consumersare more likely to accept a far brand
extensions from a brand with broad than narrowbrand breadth
(Sheinin and Schmitt, 1994;Wuand Yen, 2007). Accordingly,
the first research question herewould be “whether removing or
breaking logo frames could expand the perceived brand
breadth”.
The effects of logo frame design
Yu-Shan Athena Chen and Lien-Ti Bei
Journal of Product & Brand Management
Volume 29 · Number 1 · 2020 · 97–113
98
Get this document and AI-powered insights with a free trial of vLex and Vincent AI
Get Started for FreeStart Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting