Can A Logo Make You More Creative?

So here's the deal, I work in a creative environment, but I have to disagree with the recent announcement that viewing Apple's logo makes one more creative than IBM's logo does.

Come on, they're just logos. They're nothing but a company's brand. I like Merion Publications' logo better than the two I stared at the other day (Apple and IBM). If you open a copy of your recent print issue of ADVANCE for Health Information Executives, you will see our logo at the bottom of page 4, next to the words "Merion Publications, Inc." It kind of looks like a tree with branches. What do you see? Does our logo make you more creative?

I used to work for a workers' compensation administrator in Valley Forge, Pa. Rumor had it that the company's logo was designed by the CEO's daughter on a spirograph toy one sunny summer afternoon.

Last month, researchers at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business and Canada's University of Waterloo announced results of a study that determined that Apple's logo can make you more creative than IBM's logo can.

Professors Gavan J. Fitzsimons and Tanya L. Chartrand at Duke examined whether brand exposure elicits automatic behavioral effects as does exposure to social primes. Results from the research supposedly support the translation of these effects. Participants in the research showed more creative behavior after viewing the Apple rainbow logo than the IBM logo, after just 30 milliseconds of exposure. Also, participants in the research study who looked at Disney's branding and logo were more honest than when they viewed E! logo.

The hypothesis for the professor's research was that exposure to goal-relevant brands (i.e., representing a positive value characteristic) elicits behaviors that are goal-directed in nature.

According to a report in InformationWeek, the findings may stir up the debate about subliminal advertising, something that until recently was viewed as nothing more than a hoax.

Professor Chartrand told the technology magazine that, "what we found is that people who were subliminally primed to the Apple logo were more creative than people who had been subliminally primed to the IBM logo. The Apple logo was the old rainbow logo, not the current logo.

I have to tell you, I stared at the IBM and Apple logos, and I like IBM's better. I like how the lines run through the letters I, B and M. I was drawn to the IBM logo. I immediately thought of Big Blue, and felt like the company IBM had a strong corporate entity, because of its logo. In contrast, Apple's earlier rainbow logo made me feel like I wanted to kick back and take the rest of the afternoon off.

Do you feel more creative after looking at Apple's rainbow logo than after looking at IBM's logo? What about Merion Publications logo? Does ours make you feel more creative?

Take a look at them and tell me what you think.