Brand Early

The website “Fast Company” recently featured an article on branding for start-ups: “brand early, not often“. Expert blogger Emily Heyward observed that “when a client is starting a business, everything is top priority, and it is often easy to think “logo” and “design” should come later.”

Her observations and advices are very much in line with the findings of our study “Brand New Ventures? Insights on start-ups’ branding practices”. The entrepreneurs she interviewed stated, for instance: “We just want to get it out there; we’ll see what sticks and make changes as we go”. Although this kind of statements can make sense from the perspective of the entrepreneurs,  our research revelaed that after only a few years from establishment, more than half of the analayzed companies already perceive their names as too “small” and thier logos as outdated. For instance, one of the companies had the logo developed by the wife of the founder. Only after a few years their relized that the logo, the Greek letter Alpha, was not protectable nor distinctive.

They asked a professional agency to develop a new logo, however – having now over 200 employees wearing uniforms with the company logo – they told us: “it would be a big expense and at the moment there are no concrete plans for substitution”.

Thanks Martin for the hint.