Identifying counterfeit brand logos: on the importance of the first and last letters of a logotype

Abstract

Purpose Counterfeiting is a menace in the emerging markets and many successful brands are falling prey to it. Counterfeit brands not only deceive consumers but also fuel a demand for lower priced replicas, both of which can devalue the bona-fide brand. But can consumers accurately identify a counterfeit logo? This paper aims to explore this question and examines the accuracy and speed with which a consumer can identify a counterfeit (vs original) logo. Design/methodology/approach Seven popular brand logos were altered by transposing and substituting the first and last letters of the logotypes. Consumers then classified the logos as counterfeit (vs original) across two experiments. Findings Participants were faster and more accurate in identifying a counterfeit logo when the first letter (vs last letter) of a logotype was manipulated, thus revealing last letter manipulations of a brand’s logotype to be more deceptive. Research limitations/implications This paper comments only on the manipulation of logotypes but not of logo symbols. Similarly, findings may not be generalizable across languages which are read from right to left. Practical implications Counterfeit trade is already a multibillion dollar industry. Understanding the key perceptual differentiators between a counterfeit (vs original) logo can be insightful for both consumers and firms alike. Originality/value Research available on objective measures of similarities (vs dissimilarities) between counterfeit (vs original) brand logos is limited. This paper contributes by examining the ability of consumers to discriminate between counterfeit (vs original) logos at different levels of visual similarity.

Does the cowl make the monk? Detecting counterfeits in brand names versus logos

“…They found longer response times and higher error rates when the misspelled logo had the initial letter transposed than when it had its final letter transposed. Pathak et al’s ( 2019a ) Experiment 2 replicated this pattern when the misspelled logos were created by replacing the initial or the final letter (tacebook vs. facebooa). Furthermore, Pathak et al ( 2019b ) created, by letter transposition/migration, three types of misspelled logos varying in their orthographic similarity with the original (e.g., facbeook vs. fcabeook vs. fcbaoeok).…”

“…Rather surprisingly, there has been very little research in cognitive psychology that examines the processes underlying the identification of logotypes with adult readers (see Blake, Nazarian, & Castel, 2015 , for recent research on logomarks). Two exceptions are the recent studies conducted by Pathak, Velasco, and Calvert ( 2019a , 2019b ) in which participants had to decide whether a logotype was correctly spelled or not. In Experiment 1, Pathak et al ( 2019a ) employed seven logos (e.g., the facebook logo) that could be presented in their original form or with a transposition of the two initial or the two final letters (afcebook and faceboko; i.e., the misspelled logos).…”

“…Two exceptions are the recent studies conducted by Calvert (2019a, 2019b) in which participants had to decide whether a logotype was correctly spelled or not. In Experiment 1, Pathak et al (2019a) employed seven logos (e.g., the facebook logo) that could be presented in their original form or with a transposition of the two initial or the two final letters (afcebook and faceboko; i.e., the misspelled logos). They found longer response times and higher error rates when the misspelled logo had the initial letter transposed than when it had its final letter transposed.…”

“…Clearly, the Pathak et al (2019aPathak et al ( , 2019b experiments revealed important similarities between the identification of logos and the identification of common words. However, there are still some relevant questions to be addressed regarding how we process logos (either correctly spelled or misspelled).…”

IMPULSE Moment-by-Moment Test: An Implicit Measure of Affective Responses to Audiovisual Televised or Digital Advertisements

“…In the context of consumer behavior, if respondents have a strong sense of trust for a particular brand (e.g., MTV), then they will make positive automatic evaluations of trust when they see the MTV logo. This may act in a congruent way in an affective priming test when they see trust-related words (e.g., reliable, dependable, trusted) and in an incongruent way in response to words related to mistrust (e.g., mistrust, doubt, misgiving) as in Calvert et al's [38] study (see [38][39][40][41] for a similar approach on semantic priming using audio and visual stimuli).…”