Committed customers don’t like it when a brand changes their logo, recently published research has revealed.

According to ScienceDaily, researchers discovered that consumers who are strongly committed to a brand tend to react negatively to logo redesigns, resulting in lowering their opinion of the brand.

However, the report also revealed that casual customers see a new logo as a positive development.

This piece of marketing news comes just days after Starbucks unveiled a new logo, which was met with opposition from some.

“Most companies presume that their most precious customers – those having strong brand commitment – will be more accommodating to changes,” wrote researchers in their study titled ‘Do Logo Redesigns Help or Hurt Your Brand? The Role of Brand Commitment’.

“Our results show this is likely a mistaken assumption – one that can alienate the core, the most committed of a brand’s customers.”

It’s believed that the reason why consumers were so negative is because they view the changes as threatening to their relationship with the brand. “They are likely to view a change in the logo, which affects these associations, as threatening their self-brand connections and relationships,” they wrote in the study published in The Journal of Product & Brand Management.

“Consequently, such consumers will be negatively disposed to the logo change and likely to evaluate the logo negatively.”

One way to get around this obstacle, researchers suggest, is to tell committed fans that a logo redesign will be happening before the wider public is told. This, combined with asking for feedback on a redesign, will help fans of the brand feel like they’re insiders and strengthen their self-brand connection.

Related posts:

1. Skoda to modernise brand with new logo
2. GAP abandons new logo after just one week
3. Consumers dismayed as Starbucks drops its name in logo revamp
4. New logo launched by Eurostar
5. Sponsors remain committed to England’s bid