INVESTIGATING THE ATTITUDES OF COLLEGE STUDENTS TOWARDS BRAND LOGOS

ABSTRACT This research is known as ‘Investigating the Attitudes of College Students Towards Brand Logos’. Logos are visual branding elements of brands that help in identifying and differentiating one brand from others. The context of this paper is to understand consumer knowledge of brand logos and more so to reveal how salient a logo is to consumers in the areas of general attitudes, brand personality and purchase. In this research, the focus is placed on college students in the University of Ghana and Ashesi University College. The research question and objectives include: RESEARCH QUESTION • What is the attitude of college students towards brand logos? RESEARCH OBJECTIVES • To investigate the attitudes of college students towards logos • To explore the attitudes of college students towards brands through logos • To ascertain how logos affect college student purchasing behaviour The study is a qualitative study and data collection has been organized through indepth interviews and focus groups. This research seeks to fill the literature gap by focusing specifically on college students. The findings have revealed that college students prefer logos that are simple, have an attractive colour, and are creative. Some of the logos within this winning category included the Vodafone logo, Apple logo and the Snapchat logo among others. In addition, students are also able to tell a brand’s personality; Brand personality is the association of human personality traits with brands (Aaker, 1997) stipulated by Jennifer Aaker namely: Sincerity, Competence, Sophistication Excitement and Ruggedness through its logos. What this means in simple terms is that, if the brand were to be a human being, it would either exhibit any of the above characteristics. A personal favourite of students was the Apple logo, which they largely found as sophisticated with a large number of banks falling under competence. In addition, the study revealed that logos somewhat affect buying decisions of students, the look of a logo had the ability to influence purchase.