Increase Sales with Credibility-based Logo Design - Part 2
June 2007

     The new logo would symbolize "flying", Continental's basic or core business. Then, the "flying" symbol would be designed in a contemporary motif symbolizing "high tech", "state-of-the-art", and "friendly." This supports Continental's high service image. Like a product package, we were communicating the essence of the Continental product inside --- high service which would give customers confidence that what they already knew about Continental would be visually seen as well. Now we were on track.

     Then, we would reframe the dated logo design and environmental graphics so vivid in our photographic inventory with the new logo together with simple, contemporary environmental design themes. The plane markings would be horizontal stripping on a long white fuselage of gold, orange and red beginning with the famous gold tail with a red logo.

     The ticket counters would look super efficient --- a place for great service. The city ticket offices and boarding areas would have interesting photos and artifacts from around Continental's route structure while also looking super efficient. The new design image taken in all areas of customer contact would be a natural extension of Continental's reputation for high service.

     But it would do something else from our perspective as graphic designers.

     What Saul and I were doing was describing Continental's credibility traits in communication persuasion although we didn't call it that. Several years later in graduate school I discovered the connection between source credibility in communication persuasion and its application to logo design. I termed this process, credibility-based logo design. My 1979 Master of Arts thesis on this process was awarded scholastic honors. The credibility-based logo design process later became the subject of my best selling book, The Power of Logos: How to Create Effective Company Logos, NY: Wiley, 1997.

What is credibility based logo design?

     First of all, consider looking at a company logo as communication persuasion, rather than artwork per se. Then follow me here. It all goes back to Communication 101. There are four elements in any communication process and are arranged in the following model:

(1) The source or sender of the message. In our case the company.
(2) The message. In our case unique selling points for the purpose of inducing a purchase.
(3) The channel. In Continental's case plane markings as an example, but normally TV, newspaper, phone, website ---- any medium which carries the message.
(4) The receiver. These are important stakeholders such as customers, employees, banks, suppliers etc.

     If the company is the source, how does the company influence the receiver as a customer? Many studies in interpersonal communication over the past forty years conclude that a source which is expert and trustworthy will be more influential than a non-credible source. In other words, a credible source being at the beginning of the model is critical to the message placed in targeted channels being accepted or not the receiver. This is called source credibility in communication persuasion.

     For example, a computer wiz would be more influential in recommending what computer software program to buy than, say, a chef. But, on the other hand, a chef would be more influential when it comes to recommending the best curry or the latest Pacific fusion cookbook to buy. You wouldn't necessarily go to the computer wiz for food-related purchase advice, and you wouldn't go to the chef for computer-related purchase advice.

     In short, a person high in the dimensions of expertise and trust will be more credible, and, therefore, more influential. The research I conducted as my MA thesis and just recently my PhD thesis has supported the application to logo design that a company perceived in its logo to be expert in its field and is trusted will be more credible and, therefore, more influential. In fact, two to four times more influential than a non-credible logo. Read: more sales.

     This is because people relate to companies the same way they relate to people. Like human communicators, logo design benefits or suffers based on its credibility appearance. Although with companies, logo design is a form of the company's "brand-customer" relationship. Applied to logo design, I termed the process credibility-based logo design.

How Does Credibility Work in Logo Design?

     As mentioned, university supervised research demonstrated that successful logos --- logos that work to help achieve company goals --- are indeed credibility-based. My research supported the revelation that night in Saul's office. Credibility based logo design projects the company as being an expert in their business symbolizing the company core competence and communicates the company as being trustworthy and believable. I sometimes add that a company must be believable at being able to do the work for which it claims to be an expert.

     Expertise and trustworthy define the two import credibility traits for a given company. "Flying" is Continental's basic business or expertise.

     Credibility-based logo design also communicates the company as trustworthy with recognized non-verbal design motifs. Continental's reputation for high service was communicated by making the "flying" symbology "high tech", "state-or-the-art" and "friendly". These trustworthy traits were communicated in a contemporary design motif quite suitable for 1968 and maybe even today.

     What Saul and I were doing that night in 1967 was, as it turned out, specific credibility trait planning which became Continental's credibility based "logo design brief." The "design brief" objectives were set for the logo design phase which produced the Continental logo above.

Go to Part 3, How to Design Credibility-Based Logos

© William L. Haig, Ph.D. or Bill Haig, Ph.D. 2007

This is an original work of the author. All rights reserved. Copyright registration will be applied for. No part of this article may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical photocopying, and recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the author.