Could you imagine what if the logo of MacDonald's was in blue? Changing a logo is an expensive process so it is important to get it right. The design of the luxury brand logo made a great influence on the customer's mind since the logo of a luxury brand is not only presenting the style along with the culture of the company (Schroeder, Salzer-Mörling, & Askegaard, 2006). Instead, it is also presenting the idea or concept for the customers to figure out the services of the company itself. The customers in these modern days always require unique products within the best quality. Therefore, the companies need to figure out the best approaches to meet that demand, and also to get survive in the tough market competition as well. The logo came up as one of the tools that the company used to attract the customers. Nowadays, the customers will able to identify for some companies based on their logos of the brands that they attached within their products. In fact, these logos appear to define the style and the status of the companies as well (Karjalainen & Snelders, 2010).

This research proposal will give the focus on the various factors around the logo design, and how is it able to influence the result of the complete luxury brand. This research proposal will also evaluate how the impact of color into the brand perception which has made the companies select carefully for the color of their logo since the color appears to give the significant effect on the customer's mind.

Literature Background of The Impact of brand elements on the luxury brand on consumer perception 

Yu-Shan Athena Chen and Lien-Ti Beiit (2018) suggested that it has turned out to become progressively problematic to manage on what is being talked about or even what facts that the customers are viewing pay attention to or observing relating to a specific brand. In simple words, this means that it is progressively more essential to make the furthermost of any connections or relations between the customer and the brands. Therefore, the companies need to get to know on how the design components that are included within their brands and products, which are absolutely in the hand of the brand proprietors could ever form the perception of the customer (Chen & Bei, 2018).

Henry A. Giroux (2012) also found that minor modifications in logo design are capable of having serious concerns for the context of marketing. The first one is that, when a brand manager desires to shape a wide brand, an open logo is possible to give the advantage for the brand rank. In divergence, when a brand manager desires to generate a reliable appearance, a framed logo might provide more. Secondly, the findings from the study present that the open, as well as framed logos, could give the influence not just to the opinion of the brand scope but also the advance brand extension approaches. For this reason, the marketers could make the most of the advantages of designing the logo by using the method that will be suitable for the position of a brand (Giroux, 2012).

Alejandro Salgado-Montejo, Carlos Velasco, Juan Sebastián Oliver, Jorge Alvarado, and Charles Spence (2014) proposed that a great logo has to be both simple and also immediately recognized, in order to pass on the positive impact and to deliver the identical perception throughout the diverse customers. Furthermore, the authors also mentioned that, within an eight-country revision, a study has described that the specific combinations of colors are able to be further simply passed over the perception of a logo. In consequence, it is proposing that the sensory information is able to, indeed, impact on the brand acknowledgment as well as positioning the brand itself.

Moreover Martin Lindstrom (2005) stated that, to give the further understanding of the various aspects that able to influence on the brand perception along with the brand management, it is considered to be essential to take into account about the role of function of  that sensory info has in describing the company as well as the brand characteristics. As a study proposes, some experiences that take sensory and responsive elements into account will be further effective and operative at involving the customer. On the other hand, while there is an increasing indication with reference to how this sensory info could able to influence the customer’s perception of packing and products, there was minor focus has been given from the sensory scientists toward the brand itself. This is particularly accurate when it is time for the research issuing on how dissimilar design elements, for example, such as typography and shapes, could able to influence the perception that customers figure out about the brands (Lindstorm, 2005).

 Elyette Roux, Eric Tafani, and Franck Vigneron (2017) suggested in their journal that, in the context of luxury brands, the customer’s perceptions include the values which related with and also the intentions for the luxury brand ingestion. Meanwhile, the values are convinced that state to the anticipated characteristics of luxury brands and work for as the standards in controlling the customer performance. In the other hand, intentions describe as the motivations that drive the customers toward the anticipated objectives and associated values as well. Based on this viewpoint, the luxury brand values and intentions create two associated, but separate surfaces of the customer-brand affiliation: values are considered to be brand-oriented as they put the focus on the luxury brand features, in which the intentions are considered to be customer-oriented as they put the focus on the drivers that lead customers to favor specific values. The luxury perceptions assimilate both relational and individual values along with the associated intentions (Roux, Tafani, & Vigneron, 2017).

Furthermore, Barry J. Babin, David M. Hardesty, and Tracy A. Suter (2003) also mentioned that the luxury brands also transfer two individual values that imitative from the private and also self-directed profits: self-indulgence associated to the emotional reactions and rigorousness which based on the alleged quality. First, the luxury consumption offers the customer for extra than the practical efficacy, as it provides the essential desire and emotional delight ensuing from the purchase, ownership, as well as the usage of the luxury goods. Therefore, the luxury brands definitely have an essential self-indulgence prospective that could go further than the customer satisfaction, as it includes an assurance of desire and a capability to delight, which stand-in the brand appeal and consumption re-experience. Second, the best quality is viewed as an essential feature of luxury brands. Since the customers have a tendency to use a price as a signal to assume the quality of the product, exclusive luxury brands (if compared to the normal brands) are deliberated the indications of quality that are able to provoke the assurance around the greater presentation, legitimacy, or custom. In this logic, looking for the best quality is considered to be an individual intends to achieve excellent perfection (Babin, Hardesty, & Suter, 2003)

 According to the research conducted by the Sarwar, Aftab, & Iqbal (in 2014) brand elements directly influence the consumer perception about the overall brand and offered products. research findings conclude that branding directly results in the change of buying decision as consumer perceived that branded products are designed in such a way that fulfill their needs and requirements. the key reason behind this consumer perception is strong positioning and image of brand translated in the targeted market. (Sarwar, Aftab, & Iqbal, 2014) Consumer perception about a brand also causes to promote customer loyalty and equity towards the brand.   

Research Questions of The Impact of brand elements on the luxury brand on consumer perception

This research proposal is focusing on how the logo is able to translate into a luxury brand. As we acknowledged, diverse logos definitely translate for the culture, values, and also services of the company diversely. For example, the logo of KFC, which included the picture of Colonel Sanders, which is the founder of KFC. Even though, the logo has been modified several times, but the company never remove that picture since it reflects and also give information about the company itself. Thus, the logos really have a great influence on the definition of the brand. In this research, we will examine if the translation of the logo is also able to influence on the luxury brand. Normally, the logo presents the info around its creators, products or services, values, and also the culture of the company (Willmott, 2010).

Another important thing to be investigated in this research is, how the colors could give a great influence on the customers’ mind, and also how essential to know which color that must be involved within the logo as well (Machado, Vacas-de-Carvalho, Costa, & Lencastre, 2012).

These following questions are the questions that this research (Belk, Fischer, & Kozinets, 2012) will figure out to find the answers:

·         How does the luxury brand compare when translated or altered?

The sub-questions in this research will include:

·         How the colors of the logo could affect the perception of the brand?

·         Does the logo translation affect the luxury brand?

Hypothesis

The hypothesis has formulated after collecting the data from the earlier research studies which provided proper insights around the design of the logo and the impacts on the sales, productivity, and the complete customers' loyalty (Association & Resources, 2018).

H1:  Translation positively influences the brand logo

This hypothesis defines that the logo delivers a positive influence for the customers to the brand (Wang, 2013).

H2: Color positively influence the logo

This hypothesis defines that color has a positive impact on the brand logo, which means that the luxury brands that embrace colors have the prospect to shape a better image into the customers’ mind.

H3: Shape positively influence the brand logo

This hypothesis defines that the logo’s shape has a great influence on the brand logo (Phillips, McQuarrie, & Griffin, 2014).

H4:  Type Font positively influence brand logo

This hypothesis defines the further diversification of the style, the more it will able to get the customers’ attention (Grohmann, Giese, & Parkman, 2013).

H5: Brand logo mediates the relationship between antecedents and luxury brand

This hypothesis defines that the brand logos mediates the relationship between the company’s experience & luxury brand (Bian & Forsythe, 2012).

H6: Brand logo influences Luxury Brand

This hypothesis defines that the brand logo has a great influence on the luxury brand, since the style, color, and design of luxury brand logo deliver a major amount of information to the customer (Bian & Forsythe, 2012).

Underlying Theor

The underlying framework could give a complete framework designed for the study to follow (Regoniel, 2015). The picture above is representing the underlying framework for this research. From the picture above, we can see that the variables like translation, color, shape, and also type font really have an essential significance to influence on the logo of the brand. Then, the brand logo has an essential significance to influence on the luxury brand. From here, we could define that, the variables above definitely give the impact on the brand logo, and the brand logo will then give the effect the luxury brand.

Method of Research Design on The Impact of brand elements on the luxury brand on consumer perception

This research will use the quantitative research design to gather quantitative data for the study (Frank Zazza & Vychodil, 2010). The nature of the research would be descriptive due to the study would be relied on the data which has been collected earlier. The methods of primary and secondary data collection are going to be applied in order to collect the data (Srivastava, 2011). From the numbers of several research studies, we will define whether the logos really have any effect on the brands or not. As mentioned above that, the brand logos deliver short information about the history of the company and what the company really wants to deliver to its customers as well (Ricca & Robins, 2012). In simple words, the brand logos play as the mediator for the relationship between the experience of the company and the luxury brand (Fetscherin & Heilmann, 2016).

Implications of branding strategies of the luxury brand on consumer perception

Even though branding could help the companies to create a theme and reputation for the products, but the companies also need to be assured that their branding strategies will be ethical (Heding, Knudtzen, & Bjerre, 2008). If a company establishes its branding strategies that might considered to be unethical by the customers, then it will give the negative image for the company itself. Ethical brands mean that the brands that established by the companies are really pay attention about the society that they are living in, the rules, the policies, and the culture (Rosenbaum-Elliott, Percy, & Pervan, 2015).

 Some implications to make your brand strategies to be ethical (Ferrell, Fraedrich, & Ferrell, 2006) are as follow:

·         Make the brand to be environmental friendly

This simply means that the companies need to pay attention on the environmental protection while producing their products. For example, the companies could do some efforts to recycle the used materials of the products (Magnier & Schoormans, 2017).

·         Implement the equal quality with the price of your product

Companies should make the quality control standards to make sure that the quality of their products are as what they claimed to be. With this way, the companies will able to secure the reputation and also fulfil their ethical responsibility to the society as well (Hunt, 2019).

·         Honesty about the pricing

Companies have to make sure that the price that they are presented in marketing advertise is the same price that the customers will get when they really buy the products (Klink & Wu, 2017).

Limitations of the luxury brand on consumer perception

The main limitation of this research is that the research is concentrating highly on the logo in which there are many alternative things to be considered which also have a significant influence on the luxury brands, for example, such as the differentiation level, or also the prices which set up the luxury brands (Hannagan, 2001). However, the main focus of this research is on the brand logo, along with the impacts on the luxury brands. Therefore, the range of this research is limited since it focuses on the design and translation of the logo (Torres, Machado, Carvalho, Velden, & Costa, 2019). Therefore, it does not mean that this limitation will give any impact on the reliability and also the credibility of this research. Another limitation also is collecting data from women is difficult especially in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia due to the religion and the rules (Christiaans, 2012).

Contribution of The Impact of brand elements on the luxury brand on consumer perception

This research could be used by the next researchers to study, analyze, and investigate everything about the logos along with their influences or impacts on the brands. This research will provide as well quite sufficient resources for future studies to carry out. The next future researchers would be able to identify the gaps in the research and also would be able to conduct some other researches as well to figure out on minimizing the gaps. Generally, this research could be considered as a competent resource to provide the number of various and important information for the future researchers within the different scope of studies.