A Study on the Perceived Effectiveness of Globe Telecom's New Corporate Logo in Communicating its Corporate Identity

Abstract

The logo is a graphic design an organization uses to identify itself to its target publics (Henderson and Cote, 1998). It is an important element of corporate identity, which is concerned with “planned” visual elements (Gregory, 1998); however, corporate identity is also concerned with corporate intangibles such as corporate history, organizational type, organization activities, markets served, and organizational philosophy. Ergo, organizational identity is a statement of who and what a company is (Gregory, 1998). Using this definition, it may be erroneously interchanged with corporate image, which is the collective perception of an organization’s target audiences. It is also concerned with “what people see in their mind’s eye when the name of the company is seen or heard” (Hepner, 1964, p. 209). The question now is whether a logo is effective based on two sets of perceptions: that of the company—which is considered to be its organizational identity, and that of its target publics—which is its organizational image. The gap in knowledge motivated the researcher to shed light to this issue. The organization in focus is Globe Telecom. The main problem now is “What is the perceived effectiveness of Globe Telecom’s new logo in communicating its corporate identity?”. In order to answer the main problem, three sub questions are given: (1) What is the corporate identity that the company wants to communicate through its new logo?”, (2) “What is the corporate image of Globe Telecom as perceived by its publics through its new logo?”, and (3) “How similar is the corporate identity and corporate image of Globe Telecom using the Coorientation Model?”/ The study used a survey-questionnaire as a quantitative tool for data-gathering. The survey-questionnaire is based on Winter, Saunders, and Hart’s (2003) factors on how organizations can be perceived. The participants are Globe Telecom main office HR Group employees, and CAS students from University of the Philippines Manila. The study used a nonprobability purposive sampling method. In order to compare the two sets of perceptions, the study made use of Cutlip, Center, and Broom’s (1994) Model of Coorientation wherein the two sets of perceptions were compared for agreement, accuracy, and congruence. Agreement is the extent of similarity between two perceptions, accuracy is the extent to which one’s estimated perception matches someone’s actual view, while congruence is the extent to which one’s perception matches his estimate of another’s perception. Furthermore, t-test was used in comparing the two sets of perceptions using a 0.05 level of significance to asses the data in a quantitative manner. The results of the study revealed that the organizational identity of Globe Telecom as perceived in its new corporate logo is competent, profitable, innovative, flexible, large, reliable, efficient, creative, financially stable, leading edge, and customer-oriented. In addition, the company is also perceived as relatively efficient, relatively experienced, and relatively not conservative; however, there is a tie between being caring and being relatively caring. On the other hand, the organizational image of Globe Telecom as perceived in its new logo is creative. In addition, the company is perceived as relatively competent, relatively profitable, relatively flexible, relatively large, relatively reliable, relatively efficient, relatively caring, relatively experienced, relatively financially-stable, relatively leading edge, and relatively customer- oriented. However, there is neutrality towards the image of being conservative. Moreover, Globe Telecom’s new logo is deemed effective in all five methods of comparison of perceptions— Agreement, Accuracy A, Accuracy B, Congruence A, and Congruence B.