Upright or Inclining? An Empirical Study of the Impact of Brand Logo Shapes on the Consumer Product Evaluation

Zhou Xiaoman; Ye Shenghong; Li Jia; Huang Zan

doi:doi:10.16538/j.cnki.fem.2019.02.007

Summary

Brand logo is an important visual symbol of the brand, which plays a key role in creating brand equity, strengthening brand cognition, and building consumer loyalty. Many companies have recognized the importance of logo, and put many resources to the brand logo design and promotion. Upright as well as inclining brand logo is common in our life, but at present, few researchers have examined their impacts on consumer perception and preferences. Previous studies have found that the brand logo shape（round VS. square, square VS. rectangle, sharp VS. mellow）, position（high VS. low）, logo integrity, prominence and the status of brand logo（dynamic VS. static）could affect the perception and preference of consumers, which in turn influence their evaluation of products or brands. According to the embodied cognition theory and the structural metaphor theory, this study investigates the impact of brand logo shapes（upright vs. inclining）on the evaluation of consumer product attribution, verifies the mediating effect of perceived movement, and examines the moderating effect of product innovation patterns through four studies. The paper confirms that brand logo shapes（upright vs. inclining）will affect consumers’ product evaluation through four studies. Study 1 proves that different logo shapes（upright vs. inclining）will bring different degrees of consumer perceived movement, that is, the inclining logo will make a higher degree of perceived movement than the upright logo. Study 2 shows that the upright logo will make consumers have higher reliability evaluation, while the inclining brand logo will make consumers perceive higher product innovativeness. In study 3, we find that consumers perceive a higher degree of movement with the inclining brand logo, and then have more innovative evaluation. Moreover, consumers perceive a lower degree of movement with the upright logo, and have higher product reliability evaluation. This conclusion illustrates that perceived movement has a mediating effect on the relationship between the brand logo shape and product attribution evaluation. Study 4 shows that brand logo shapes（upright vs. inclining）will influence consumer perceived movement, while the level of perceived movement will be different because of the moderating effect of product innovation patterns. As to radical products, the upright logo（vs. inclining logo）will make a lower degree of perceived movement, which will bring higher perceived reliability, but it makes no significant difference of perceived innovativeness. For incremental products, the inclining logo（vs. upright logo）will make a higher degree of perceived movement, which will bring higher consumer perceived innovativeness, but it makes no significant difference of perceived reliability. This study broadens the scope of embodied cognition and structural metaphor, and further deepens the intermediary mechanisms and boundary conditions of brand logo shapes and consumers’ product evaluation. Moreover, the research provides brand designers and managers with some important guidance and suggestions, which has theoretical and practical significance.