Comparative Assessment of Semiotic Effect of Logo on Customer Brand Attitude

Brand attitude is a basic concept pertaining to consumer behavior, which may reinforce that behavior as a relatively stable characteristic of a trademark/brand. Considering a logo is a branded asset, proper logo design will have a positive effect on customer brand attitude. Quality and design serve as distinguishing factors for a logo. Logotype is a graphic inscription used by business owners, institutions, real individuals, etc. to distinguish their name from others. Logos are among the major assets of each brand and play a decisive role in the fate of that brand and business Graphic designers use various methods to improve logo quality and design; the semiotics-based design is a method largely overlooked by designers, and, even, brand managers. Semiotics is turning into a vast science encompassing a number of other sciences and is, in fact, changing to a meta-theory. Semiotics has a broad scope including all areas of human activities. Semiotics defines ‘sign’ as an entity which refers to something else, manifesting in words, images, sounds, smells, flavors, things, movements, and manners; theses become signs when they are assigned meanings. Semiotics deals with the meaningful usage of signs. This paper was an applied, descriptive survey which used the sign classification system of Charles Sanders Peirce, the famous American semiotician, who classified signs into icon, index, and symbol. The population included the customers of the Bank Maskan, Bank Keshavarzi, and Post Bank of Iran in Tehran, 380 of whom were selected through simple random sampling. The data was collected using questionnaires. Reliability and validity were measured using the following tests: factors loading coefficient, combined reliability, Cronbach’s alpha, convergent validity, and divergent validity. The overall fitting of the research model was also assessed. Smart PLS and SPSS were used to analyze the data. The results showed that there was a significant, positive relationship between logos of these banks and their customer brand attitude. Bank logo variable, with a t statistic of 8.563 and a path coefficient of 0.502, had a significant relationship with customer brand attitudes of Bank Keshavarzi, Bank Maskan, and Post Bank of Iran. In other words, logos can foster a positive brand attitude. Logos had the highest effect on brand attitude in the customers of Bank Maskan and had the lowest effect on brand attitude in the customers of Post Bank of Iran. This indicates that the customers established a stronger connection with Bank Maskan’s logo thanks to its iconic nature. This connection was less strong in regard to Bank Keshavarzi’s logo because it was indexical. The symbolic logo of Post Bank of Iran established the weakest connection, showing that this logo was not designed properly and could not make a meaningful connection with the customer mindset. This weak connection may be caused by the symbolic nature of this logo; many customers might have not possibly grasped the meanings hidden beneath this logo and could not establish the proper connection with the design of this logo.