Logo Confusion

I attended my first Canadian Football League game last week and not that it didn’t fully engage my attention, but my focus at times ended up on the end zone and sideline advertising. I was there with a season ticket holder and Canadian native and we ended up playing a game, “Hey Larry, based on that logo what do you think that company does?”

Purolator. I guessed gas or petrol station. Maybe coffee.

Wrong. It’s the Fed-Ex of Canada.

Smithrite. I guessed a lock smith. A special kind of pen?

Wrong. Waste and Recycling company.

Fisherman’s Friend.  This one is easy, right? It must be a bait and tackle shop. A liquor store? Outdoor clothing!

Wrong. It’s a throat lozenge.

The exercise got me thinking about radio logos. Often times we use our logo for marketing and promotion campaigns with a focus on growing CUME. While WE totally get our logos and it’s “obvious” what it is, who you are and what you do – what if you’d never had listened to the radio station would you still “get it?”

As an industry we’ve shied away from using “radio,” “FM” and “AM” and maybe to our detriment. If you weren’t in the radio industry would you “get” these radio station logos?

Food for thought.