Playing Nice

I recently sat down at my computer, with an invite to my 3 year old daughter’s friend’s birthday party in hand, to check a detail about the event on the venues website. It’s a children’s gym, a place that she has only been two times before – both times for birthday parties. As I pulled up the website she crept up behind me and exclaimed, “I know that place, it’s the gym for birthdays! Who’s having a birthday? When do we get to go…..” the questions, volume of her voice and energy steadily increasing as she got more pointed, “When? Who? Let’s go right now! We need to get a present!”I sat trying to calm her down and explain that it was over a month away, when I turned back to the computer, dumbfounded that the only thing on the page, that told her all she needed to know, was the logo. It’s a fairly distinct logo – typeface, colors, nicely contained in a circle so it overlays content and images well, and a fun-loving monkey hugging the entire thing. But, she’s 3. She’s 3 and she recognized the company by their brand mark. She can’t read – so that’s not how she identified it. She knows her colors, most of her shapes, some of her letters, definitely her animals. So technically it could be any one of the components other than the actual words.I’ve thought about breaking the logo apart to see what exactly it was that resonated with her. I want to attribute it to the cute monkey. But the marketer in me tells me it’s not anything individually, it’s how it all plays together.I think what struck me most about it was that she’s literally only been to that particular children’s gym twice – each time for 2 hours - that's 4 hours total of exposure to the logo. The experience was so striking to her, so memorable, that her little steel trap of a memory soaked it all in – including the branding.In all actuality even as a 3 year old she knows a ton of companies by their branding. Many more than I even want to acknowledge. She knows what she likes and doesn’t like, and she knows which products we as her parents are loyal to.It’s reminders like this that enforce the work we do. How forming a company’s identity, coupled with the experience around it, can result in the lasting impression and the loyalty we all hope to gain with our consumers.  If we can find the magic of the colors, the text, the tagline and work to make them all play nice together even 3 year olds will have brand recognition – which you would think would translate even better to a target demographic with a higher age range? Or maybe the magic really is the monkey hugging all of the pieces? You tell me. -Blythe Carrillo