New media operation: How to create a brand super symbol

In daily life, we often have this experience: most brands are identified through their logos, while some brands can be recognized at a glance without a logo. For example, when you see a pair of pants with "three stripes" from a distance, you will react quickly and know that these are most likely Adidas pants.

Comparatively speaking, Nike is not so easy to recognize. You have to be very close to find Nike's "small check" logo.

Every time a user uses your product in public, it is a great exposure opportunity for your brand. The more prominent your symbol is, the higher the brand exposure will be. Therefore, the result of this symbolic difference can be imagined. Under the condition of the same sales volume, considering only the dissemination of product channels, Nike's dissemination is far less than that of Adidas.

The same is true in the field of new media communication. Every communication by users provides an exposure opportunity for your brand. At this time, in addition to the logo (the logo usually accounts for a very small proportion of the product and content, is extremely difficult to recognize, and has too much advertising connotation and can easily cause disgust), you should provide other super symbols to allow users to recognize your brand at a glance.

Therefore, determining brand symbols is the first step for a brand to carry out new media operations. Properly integrating brand symbols into content can allow brand symbols to spread along with the content and improve marketing efficiency.

1. Five basic symbols of brands

According to the sensory classification, brand symbols can be divided into visual symbols, auditory symbols, olfactory symbols, taste symbols, and tactile symbols.

1. Visual symbols

Visual symbols can appear in all content forms except audio content and are the most important form of brand symbols. The most common visual symbol that appears in content is the brand logo. For example, the Red Bull brand logo appears frequently in the videos that Red Bull uses for content marketing.

Screenshot of Red Bull Human Arrow Plan Flying Over the Great Wall

However, as mentioned earlier, the recognition of brand logos is relatively low, especially when displayed at a distance and in dynamic mode. Using the brand's unique colors can effectively improve recognition. For example, Tiffany's unique blue, Coca-Cola's red, etc.

Tiffany Blue

However, the color categories are limited, and most colors with strong visual impact, such as red and yellow, have been occupied by many brands, and homogeneity is very serious. If you create brand-unique graphics, you can further enhance the recognition of the brand's visual symbols. For example, Louis Vuitton uses brown as the base color, and the four-leaf flower surrounded by a circle, a four-pointed star, a four-pointed star inside a concave rhombus, and the abbreviation of the founder’s father’s name, "LV", form the unique Monogram pattern (commonly known as the old flower in Chinese), which has become Louis Vuitton’s most famous and representative pattern.

LV Monogram pattern

The blue border that often appears in Durex's copywriting has become a classic brand symbol together with Durex's copywriting.

Durex copywriting series

Jiang Xiaobai, which is produced in Chongqing, has incorporated Chongqing symbols into its content products many times, including launching a Chongqing flavor commemorative edition product on the 20th anniversary of Chongqing's direct administration (product packaging is also one of the self-media channels):

Jiang Xiaobai Chongqing Taste Commemorative Edition

In the self-made cartoon of the same name "I am Jiang Xiaobai", a large number of Chongqing's landmark buildings were restored.

Left: Hongyadong; Right: Jiefangbei

2. Auditory symbols

Among the five major symbols, only visual symbols and auditory symbols can be transmitted through the Internet, and auditory symbols are more suitable for appearing in video and audio content. Auditory symbols are the second largest symbol category after visual symbols. Moreover, companies now generally lack awareness of the development of auditory symbols, and there is still a lot of room for development of auditory symbols.

There are not many classic auditory symbols available now. For example, “Light, wait for the light, wait for the light” appears in all Intel advertisements, Motorola’s startup greeting “HelloMoto”, Kugou Music’s startup greeting “HelloKugou”, and in audio public accounts such as Yeting, the host’s unique voice is also an auditory symbol.

Both auditory symbols and visual symbols can be a classic copy. For example, when you hear or see "I speak for myself", you will think of "Jumei Youpin"; when you hear or see "world peace", you will think of "Xue Zhiqian", because Xue Zhiqian ends almost all of his blog posts with the words "I am Xue Zhiqian, I hope for world peace". Although there is no information about the brand in these copies, the symbols in them have been firmly tied to the brand.

3. Olfactory symbols

Of all human senses, smell is the most sensitive and is the sense most closely connected to memory and emotion. Unfortunately, at this stage, smell is difficult to spread through the Internet and cannot become the main identification symbol for brand content marketing.

At present, the practice of olfactory symbols is mainly carried out in industries such as hotels, fast-moving consumer goods, and cosmetics. Basically all international high-end hotel groups have their own unique "smell". For example, Shangri-La, the largest luxury hotel group in the Asia-Pacific region, has formed an exclusive "Shangri-La Fragrance" brand. Shangri-La Hotel aims to create a global luxury and warm home experience for busy business travelers, hoping that customers will feel the warmth and comfort of Shangri-La within the first 10 minutes of entering the hotel.

Shangri-La Fragrance

To achieve this goal, Shangri-La collaborated with an Australian company in 2001 to develop the "Shangri-La Fragrance", which was inspired by the Shangri-La described in James Hilton's 1933 novel "Lost Horizon": a tranquil and pleasant paradise. "Shangri-La Fragrance" is based on vanilla, sandalwood and musk, with a hint of bergamot, white tea and ginger. It not only has a fresh and elegant scent unique to Asia, but also can soothe emotions and relieve mood.

With the development of technology, it is also easy to add brand olfactory symbols to traditional media such as magazines and newspapers. For example, Kraft Foods’ magazine advertisements also make good use of smell. All the readers have to do is rub certain points in the magazine advertisement to smell the advertised product. For example, a full-page ad for Kraft Philadelphia cream cheese shows a picture of a strawberry cheesecake that, when rubbed, gives off the sweet flavor of the dessert.

4. Taste Symbols

The application of taste symbols is relatively narrow and is mostly seen in the food industry. The unique taste of each food is the best taste symbol of the brand. In addition, luxury brands that advocate style will also provide exquisite dining in their stores to stimulate and please consumers' taste buds. For example, Armani, Gucci, and Hermès have all opened cafes to strengthen their connection with consumers through taste.

Gucci Cafe in Ginza, Tokyo

5. Tactile symbols

Tactile symbols are expressed through the unique properties of materials. Each material has its own unique way of stimulating the senses. The Japanese design master Kenya Hara is the one who has mastered the application of tactile symbols. A classic example is the signage design of Umeda Hospital. All guides in this maternity and child hospital are designed with white pure cotton cloth, with guide icons or texts printed on the white cotton cloth, which can be removed and washed at any time.

Guide design of Umeda Hospital in Japan

Using soft, comfortable and warm white cotton cloth as the design of the sign, on the one hand, breaks the rigid feeling brought by the original outline of the sign, making it gentle, lively and more humane, thus reducing the patients' nervousness about the hospital; on the other hand, the use of dirt-resistant materials can always remind medical staff to pay attention to cleanliness. Therefore, in addition to its good conventional guidance function, the Umeda Hospital signage design also provides another way of communication for directional signs.

2. Three characteristics of super symbols

Super symbols have three important characteristics: simplicity, uniqueness and repetition. Simplicity and uniqueness are both relative to the minds of target users, while repetition represents absolute quantity.

1. Simple

Simplicity is a relative concept, which means that it is easy to identify, understand and spread relative to the minds of target users. According to Associative Learning Theory, memory is a network composed of many nodes and connections representing the associative relationships between nodes.

In such a memory structure, everyday symbols and brand symbols each represent a node. When the two are combined and repeatedly presented through marketing, the two nodes in the audience's memory are activated at the same time, and an associative connection is established between them. As the number of presentations increases, the connection will continue to strengthen. In this way, the emotions or meanings associated with everyday symbols are transferred to the related brands.

Therefore, the key to creating simple symbols is to find symbols that already exist in the minds of target users and graft them together through artistic means. If your target users are everyone, then you need to look for symbols that are common in the minds of ordinary users.

For example, the three major religions in the world all use extremely simple visual symbols - the star and crescent symbol (Islam), the reincarnation symbol (one of the symbols of Buddhism), the cross symbol (Christianity), and the Star of David (Judaism); the national flags of various countries also mostly use extremely simple symbols - the sun, moon, stars, stripes, etc.

From left to right: cross symbol, reincarnation symbol, Star of David, star and crescent symbol

More and more brands have discovered this secret, so there are more and more brands creating symbols based on common things in daily life, such as Apple, Mango TV, Orange Hotel, Socket Academy, Mantou Business School, Strawberry Academy, etc.

When we look back at Apple’s first logo, we’ll find that it’s really complicated compared to the average user’s mind. This logo was designed by Ron Wayne, one of the founders of Apple.

Apple's first logo

Wayne designed it as a plaque, with a picture of a lonely Newton reading and meditating under an apple tree. The edge of the nameplate is engraved with poems by British poet William Wordsworth and is surrounded by the ribbon-like Apple corporate logo. First of all, the amount of information is very large, including patterns, poems, and brand information. The patterns are realistic patterns with very rich details. The poems themselves are also niche culture. Most users do not have a clear concept of poems in their minds, let alone the works of a specific poet. Therefore, the logo was quickly replaced.

But if your target users are a group with more complex minds, then in order to distinguish yourself from mass brands, you can look for symbols that do not exist in the minds of ordinary users but only exist in the minds of target users, and express these symbols as simply as possible.

2. Unique

Unique means that the brand symbol is rare in the same industry and can show the brand's unique personality. For example, Chaos University, which brings together the world's top innovative educational resources and is designed for high-end business people, has a simple brand symbol at first glance, a circle, but this circle has its own uniqueness - it is irregular and has gaps, symbolizing the hazy state before the formation of the universe when air, form, and matter were integrated into one and not separated, which is the original meaning of chaos.

Chaos University brand symbol

The symbol of apple is both simple and unique. The main image of "apple" comes from life and often appears in myths (such as the Bible) and fairy tales (such as Snow White). It is one of the fruits that people all over the world are familiar with and love, but it is not an ordinary apple - it has a hole missing. Although Jobs' original intention was to add the hole so that people would not mistake apples for peaches, this hole gives the brand more room for imagination and increases the brand's personality.

Apple's brand symbol

3. Repetition

Once the brand symbol is determined, it should be reflected in all brand content, including self-media content and advertising content. The self-media here does not only refer to Weibo and WeChat, but also includes the company's products, packaging, factories, employees, vehicles and everything else, all of which can be mediatized. The accumulation effect of time will strengthen the impression of brand symbols in the minds of users.

3. Summary

According to the sensory classification, brand symbols can be divided into visual symbols, auditory symbols, olfactory symbols, taste symbols, and tactile symbols. Super symbols have three important characteristics: simplicity, uniqueness and repetition.

The author of this article is @草莓学堂 and it is compiled and published by (青瓜传媒). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

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