The familiarity of popular brand logos and brand names increases the memory of color, according to a study published in the journal PLOS ONE.
Researchers from Japan conducted two experiments with a number of undergraduate and graduate students to determine whether the memorized color of objects was dependent on their familiarity, using brand names and logos.
In the first experiment, the researchers studied 14 participants. A variety of 24 logos with different levels of familiarity were selected. High-familiarity, middle-familiarity and low-familiarity. The logos were taken from food or beverage companies present in the japanese market. They were a mixture of one chromatic color (colors with a distinguishing pigment, such as blue), an achromatic color (black, white or grey), on the background of various textures.
The results revealed that the “memory color effect”, the ability to recognize an object purely from its color, occurs in logos and brands of high-familiarity, but not in those in the middle and low-familiarity categories.
In the second experiment, the researchers analyzed 17 participants. They looked at the association of the high-familiarity logos used in experiment 1 with food and beverage names using a “semantic priming task” – to see whether it was brand recognition in consumers that created the memory color effect of logos.
The results of experiment 2 showed that the relationship between logos and food/beverage names in the high-familiarity category was stronger than with the low-familiarity brands, but only when the logos were colored correctly. When the logo colors were changed, there appeared to be less recognition from the participants.
The study authors say:
“Our experimental results that the memory color effect emerges only with highly familiar logos were not explained by individual differences, but were due to the familiarity condition. These findings suggest that the degree of memory color effect increases with the familiarity of objects, albeit not constantly.”
There was also an interesting positive correlation in the study between the memory color effect and the number of domestic stores of the brand in Japan.
The researchers say: “We also found that the degree of memory color effect relates not only with the subjective familiarity of logos but also with the actual number of stores. It is believed that if people have more opportunities to see stores and signs of a certain company, they may feel familiar with the logo of that company. These findings suggest that the memory color effect may reflect the degree of consumer brand cognition.”
The study authors conclude: “The current results provide the first behavioral evidence of the relationship between the familiarity of objects and the degree of memory color effect. Although there are some limitations, these findings could serve as an important step towards understanding the nature of memory color. Further research is necessary to clarify how repeated exposure to an object leads to its memorization as a familiar object, and relates to the emergence of memory color.”