Why You Should Anthropomorphize Your Brand

In the world of startups there are a lot of corporate brand icons. A LOT. They’re all vying for user attention and to be memorable. This may seem like a small thing, but when there are 1876.2 other, say, AI tools that are positioned similarly to yours, standing out makes a difference. Well, it will once the VCs behind all those absolutely bonkers funding rounds start to call in their favors and ask you to actually win in a competitive market.?

The interesting thing is folks’ instincts seem to instantly go to trying to look as grown up and corporate as possible with their logos, and eschewing anthropomorphization (cutesy animal characters and the like).?

But, unfortunately, if the goal is to be memorable and recognizable quickly, not to feel personally cool when you share your company logo to other people, it’s really just better to make your brand icon a character of some sort.

Here’s why.

Emotional reaction

Characters that look like living creatures conjure up an instant emotional reaction that happens more quickly than most people notice, and more quickly than your brain has time to register information about your company. Don’t believe me? There are countless studies you can look up that show this.?

It doesn’t matter if you’re the smartest person in the room, you look at a brand icon that is a sad puppy dog and you have an instant emotional reaction that creates a sense memory that sticks around in a mental space beyond non emotionally charged memories.?

And to be clear, the emotion felt doesn’t have to be nostalgia or comforting, it could be derision or disgust. The effect is the same. Though, you clearly want to subsequently create positive emotional associations with it - it’s no good if you’re memorable but continuously disgusting to people.?

Why Emotions Matter

Right or wrong, appealing to emotions wins over appealing to reason. It’s just faster.?

So if there are 5 companies that have a smart toaster platform for toaster makers, if yours is the one with the toaster that has huge anime eyes and a crooked smile, while theirs is a squirkle with their company’s first letter on it, you will be remembered and recalled from memory faster.?

That means, all things being equal, you might be reached out to or tried first, by default.

But the biggest brands in the world don’t do it, why should we?

You’re not Apple. If you have the luxury of becoming large enough that when people think of an apple they think of your company, then by all means change your brand character to a slick corporate logo you can impress upon everyone by sheer force of marketing will (dollars).??

We’re talking about smart hacks to get you there - and giving people a memorable character that sticks in people’s minds when they think of your industry is a way to get ahead quickly.

It also takes less marketing budget to create a memorable brand from scratch to create an anthropomorphized brand than a standard, even cool looking, corporate mark. Apple pours an almost unbelievable amount of money every year to reinforce in your brain that their apple with a bite out of it represents apple products, and to create positive emotional associations with it.

Why isn’t everyone doing this already?

Some are, but most aren’t because, again, creating a cutesy character to represent a technology you think is badass and mature is not something that people are instantly drawn to doing, in many cases.?

It’s somewhat counterintuitive from the company side of things and it’s sometimes a hard sell internally. Feel free to send along this article in support if it’ll help.?

Anyway…

In fact, you’ll find the theme of counterintuitive insights is persistent with my writing, no doubt. I feel like you can get typical tried and true best practices better elsewhere - lots of great advice out there.

FWIW, hope this is helpful. Considering creating a living character of some sort - could be a computer with eyes, it really only matters that it stands out and is recognizable and it will have an impact on people remembering you and, who knows, circling back to give you a try, where thy might just forget one more squirkle with some lines across it.?