“Getting picked up.” Some individuals rely on their appearance, suave personality, sense of humor, style, laugh, smile or their financial status to attract the opposite sex. Whatever the case, I want you to imagine this scenario.
You just turned the corner to aisle four of the local mom-and-pop store. Milk, butter and bread are peering up at you from your basket. You notice, standing there in front of you, the single most captivating individual you have ever seen. Like a film montage, your jaw drops, your breath escapes you, your palms become sweaty and your eyes dilate. As you slowly walk past this person, heart pounding, your whole being is silently crying out to yourself, “get the courage, strike up a conversation.”
“Uh… hello?” the shopper who you find yourself utterly infatuated with inquires. Your lips move, but the words just will not seem to come out. The individual, who obviously senses a hint of chemistry, attempts to strike up another conversation. You make another attempt to answer, but with no avail, your words stay right where they were a few moments ago. In a final act of desperation, you reach in your pocket and reveal a few dull color pencils and a wadded up shopping list. You quickly unwrinkle the list and immediately begin to work with what is left of your writing utensils.
If you wanted to paint a clear and precise picture of yourself in a matter of seconds, just in the hopes that this individual might “pick you up,” could you? What if the restrictions are that you can only sketch a symbol, or jot down one or two words. Would this be enough to convey to this person all that makes you unique and special, setting you aside from all the others?
Similar to the above narrative, brands are faced with the challenge of attracting customers in the hopes of being “picked up.” “As early as the mid-1800’s, manufactures adopted the term “brand.” A brand’s identity can incorporate color, physical structure or shape, symbols, numbers, typography and other design elements. “Whether it conveys abstract or concrete ideas about a product, when fused in the mind of the consumer, the identity becomes the mental picture or perception of the product.” In essence, a brand’s identity is a visual representation which communicates perceived quality, brand promise and harnesses an emotional connection between it and the customer known as brand loyalty. Brand identity is the silent sales man (Packaging Design by Klimchuk and Krasovec).
Now here is a chance to see if marketing and design firms have been effective in creating brands that stands out among the competition. The Retail Alphabet Game is a hobby of Joey Katzen dating back to 1997. It is an amusing quiz game that provides players with a little tease of a glyph belonging to a symbol or wordmark. It is up to them to correctly guess the brand. Be weary, though, the game can be quite addicting and more than a handful of the brand challenges are pretty ambiguous. Also, be prepared to drop a little cash (JoeKatzen.com).
Since the launch of the game, Katzen’s policy has been to never provide hints or solutions to the current edition. Well, except if you slip him a little cash. Seriously, I am not joking. You can purchase a hint for $4 and a letter for $8. Otherwise, the game is completely free. However, if you are really that desperate for the answers, you can just tap out a quick web query and find the current solutions. But, for Katzen’s sake, please play fair.
Here, you can play the 5th and most current edition of the game.
i won! not really. good job with the article and keep up the interesting content.