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Promotion

4.5 The 4Ps - The importance of promotion in the marketing mix


ATL Activity - 12 Hidden Symbols In Famous Logos

Many businesses spend huge amounts of money on promotion, including the use of logos (symbols that give brands, products and businesses a unique identity). Watch this 9-minute video that features twelve famous logos with hidden symbols / messages that you may not have had any idea about.

What does the video reveal about the logos of these twelve brands/business:

  1. Paramount Pictures
  2. Domino's Pizza
  3. Hershey’s Kisses
  4. NBC
  5. Carrefour
  6. Roxy
  7. Cisco
  8. Picasa
  9. Nintendo Gamecube
  10. Unilever
  11. Wendy's
  12. Pepsi?

Video times included for reference only:

1.  Paramount Pictures 0:28
Apparently, the original logo was drawn on a napkin. The mountain on it resembled Ben Lomond in Utah, as it played an important part in the life of Paramount Pictures. The 24 stars around the mountain were not a random design for the logo, but represent the 24 actors and actresses who were the first to sign contracts with Paramount Pictures.

2.  Domino's Pizza 1:22
The original Domino's Pizza logo had dominos on it. The one / single dot stood in the logo represented the very first Domino's Pizza restaurant. The subsequent two dots in the logo symbolised the two franchises that opened a few years later. The plan was to add dots for each new restaurant - but there were more than 17,000 Domino's Pizza restaurants around the world by the end of 2019!

3.  Hershey’s Kisses 2:19
They video shows the chocolate Kiss shape between the “K” and “I”. The brand "Hershey’s Kisses" is so called because it is, apparently, named after the sound the chocolate makes moving onto the conveyer belt! The video also mentions that prior to 1921, the chocolates were individually wrapped by hand!

4.  NBC 3:09
The peacock logo was first used by NBC in 1956. Of all the birds the company could have chosen, NBC choose a peacock for its variety of colours and also to show how proud they were of their new broadcasting technologies.

5.  Carrefour 3:56
The name Carrefour translates as “crossroads”. That explains the red and blue arrows in the company's logo that point in opposite directions. The white space in between the arrows also shows a “C” - naturally, this stands for “Carrefour”.

6.  Roxy 4:24
The world famous surfing brand, Quicksilver, launched it female clothings line called Roxy back in 1990. Roxy’s logo is more than just a heart to symbolise love for sports, as the crest in the logo is built of two Quicksilver logos on their ends.

7. Cisco 4:56
Internet networking giant Cisco got its name after the city of its headquarters – San Francisco. The company's logo has both a reference to its location and to what they do as a business - but also looks a bit like the Golden Gate Bridge too.

8. Picasa 5:19
The term “casa” means “home” in Spanish. The negative space in the centre of the logo of Picasa - a company owned by Google - looks like a little house. The house represents the home for Picasa customers' digital memories.

9. Nintendo Gamecube 5:54
The cube isn’t just a cube within a cube, as Nintendo's logo might first seem to show. The outer figure of the log is the letter “G”  and the inside negative space forms a clear “C”. This shows "GC" for Gamecube.

10. Unilever 6:22
The letter “U” which clearly stands for Unilever is made up of 25 other icons that represent everything else that is important to the British-Dutch multinational consumer goods company. Look carefully, and it can be seen that there is a lock of hair, a tea leaf, a jar, a hand and even a spoon in the logo, as well as many other symbolic drawings that display the broad product portfolio of the company.

11. Wendy's 7:14
The fast food chain's company logo clearly says... “mom” on Wendy's collar. The idea is that Wendy’s is happy to give you the taste of your mom’s cooking, irrespective of whether you stick to a healthy diet or eat fast food as a guilty pleasure - even if the logo design was unintentional.

12. Pepsi 7:54
The designer of the revised Pepsi logo (for which it paid over $1m) has explained that this logo makes reference to the earth's magnetic field, Feng Shui, Pythagarus, geo dynamics, the theory of relativity, the Golden Ratio, the Mona Lisa, the Parthenon, and even René Descartes (?!). True to its corporate culture, the red, white and blue colours of the Pepsi logo have always represented the American flag.

InThinking Business Management resources

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