Signs And Sym­bols Can Sell When Other Ef­forts Fall Flat

by John Delavera
Mar­ket­ing is a very tricky game that most peo­ple tend to pre­fer to play safe.

While tried and tested ef­forts can gain re­sults, they gen­er­ally will not turn com­pa­nies into house­hold names on a na­tional or in­ter­na­tional level. When some­thing more is de­sired, com­pa­nies can learn a thing or two from the an­cient and not-so-an­­cient past.

Con­sider some of the most suc­cess­ful com­pa­nies in the mar­ket­place to­day. No mat­ter the type or types of prod­ucts these com­pa­nies of­fer, they all tend to have some­thing be­yond their pow­er­house sta­tus in com­mon.

So, what is that thing?

It hap­pens to be the use of signs and sym­bols in their mar­ket­ing cam­paigns. Think of any com­pany that is at the top of its field and chances are strong that it will be read­ily iden­ti­fi­able by its sym­bols alone.

Com­pa­nies that en­joy suc­cess on a ma­jor level do not nec­es­sar­ily have to have their names stated in com­mer­cials and other mar­ket­ing ef­forts, their signs and sym­bols speak for them­selves. Any­one who doubts this need only con­sider the com­pa­nies that are rec­og­niz­able to tod­dlers. Toy com­pa­nies, ce­real brands and even sand­wich and French fry joints will all make young­sters who can­not even read jump up and down for joy when their sym­bols are seen. The prod­ucts might not even be a child’s fa­vorites, but a re­sponse will be elicited nonetheless.

Why is this?

Long be­fore there was writ­ten lan­guage, there were sym­bols. Hu­mans have moved in a world where cer­tain sym­bols stand for spe­cific things. In many cases, sym­bols are also tied to strong emo­tions or sub­con­scious re­sponses. When com­pa­nies cap­i­tal­ize on the use of the right sym­bols in their own mar­ket­ing peo­ple tend to take no­tice with­out even notic­ing they are do­ing so.

Con­sider the many sym­bols out there that elicit pos­i­tive re­sponses in peo­ple. A check­mark, for ex­am­ple, is a sign for a job well done or com­pleted. It makes peo­ple happy and gives them a sense of ac­com­plish­ment. Olive branches and doves are signs of peace. An im­age of a lion stands for strength and loy­alty. The ex­am­ples go on and on.

When com­pa­nies take fa­mil­iar sym­bols that have pos­i­tive mean­ings in the eyes of clients, al­ter them and make them their own, they can reach out to con­sumers on an emo­tional level. Some com­pa­nies have also man­aged to cre­ate their own unique sym­bols and give pos­i­tive mean­ing to them through tac­ti­cal mar­ket­ing cam­paigns. Re­gard­less, the sym­bols, just like a check­mark on a home­work as­sign­ment, have come to rep­re­sent cer­tain emo­tions and elicit spe­cific re­ac­tions from consumers.

While not all highly suc­cess­ful com­pa­nies have learned to tap into the power of sym­bols and their abil­ity to say more with­out ac­tual words, many have. When lo­gos, prod­uct pack­ag­ing de­signs and ad­ver­tis­ing ef­forts use the right sym­bols and man­age to at­tach the right mean­ings to those sym­bols, house­hold name sta­tus can follow.

Stan­dard mar­ket­ing ef­forts can go a long way in help­ing com­pa­nies en­joy mod­est suc­cess. When go­ing be­yond is the goal, mar­ket­ing needs to take on a dif­fer­ent strat­egy. Reach­ing out to cus­tomers through sym­bols and speak­ing to them on the sub­con­scious level can pro­vide the im­pe­tus needed to turn a good com­pany into a great one.