Why Random Logos Reel Us In Title: Of Frog Wines and Frowning Watches: Semantic Priming, Perceptual Fluency, and Brand Evaluation The authors surveyed 110 college students, asking them to visualize the word frog and then showing them two wine labels, one with a frog on it and one without. They then asked the students which product they would be more likely to buy. The authors found a strong connection between how easy it was for a person to process a logo’s perceptual features (that is, how familiar they were with a frog) and how much they liked the product. Therefore, they concluded that using widely recognizable symbols as a logo choice could enhance a product’s sales. What’s more, the cognitive processing of the image can be affected by exposure to semantic cues in the rest of a consumer’s environment. For example, when people watch a television show featuring Kermit the Frog before viewing a wine label with a frog on it, it makes them even more likely to choose the image-related product over wines with other labels. Bottom Line: Easy-to-comprehend and easy-to-recall images used in a logo can greatly enhance a product’s popularity, even if the logo has no meaningful association with the item itself. Moreover, these simple logos create a strong visual identity that is readily triggered by everyday word and image associations. |
|
Less Is More Title: How Different Team Downsizing Approaches Influence Team-Level Adaptation and Performance The way a company approaches downsizing can make or break its performance. Using 355 undergraduates as their sample, the authors randomly assigned five-person teams to work on military-based command-and-control simulations. The teams’ performance was gauged first at full strength in control groups and then after one of three separate downsizing approaches was applied to the same groups. The first approach was to maintain the hierarchy, eliminating one or more members but keeping the leader in place. The researchers found that performance suffered. They concluded that this was an undesirable option, because the structure of the unit and the behavior of its members didn’t change, and adapting behavior to the new working conditions is essential to maintaining performance during downsizing. The second approach was to eliminate the hierarchy by removing only the leader and leaving the remaining team members as equals. The loss of the team leader prompted considerable behavioral and structural adjustments as the team worked to maintain performance levels. The authors wrote that this was the most successful of the downsizing methods. The third downsizing strategy was to integrate the hierarchy. One team member was removed and the leader was demoted into the vacant job. Blending the leader into the rest of the team eliminated inefficient status differentiation. But the unit’s performance still declined more than that of the team that eliminated hierarchy, because the very presence of the former leader ensured that the other members didn’t depart from old behavioral and work patterns. Bottom Line: The way a team is composed after downsizing occurs has a significant effect on the performance of that team. Eliminating hierarchy helps employees adapt and keeps performance steady. |
