| Summary: | Brands, as humans, may be different when it comes to their personality. Among the several traits building brand personality, brand gender is one of the most critical ones. Brand logos, as the primary design elements of a brand and as a critical communication cues, may significantly influence brand gender perceptions. With this research, we aim to examine how different brand logo design elements, more specifically the naturalness of logo design (organic and cultural designs), logo shape (angular and rounded), logo boldness (heavier and slender) and colour hue (light pink and dark blue) influence brand gender perceptions and, if, ultimately, brand-design-induced gender perceptions lead to positive affect towards the logo. First, an in-depth literature review is presented, where the variables analysed in this study are discussed. Based on this literature reviews, a research model was developed and research hypotheses were formulated. Subsequently, to investigate these topics, a quantitative research was held through an online survey. This relied on a sample of unknown and manipulated logos, used as stimuli for the analysis. This study counted with a total of 357 completed surveys, to a range of 32 manipulated logos. Results suggest that logo design elements significantly evoke brand gender perceptions, when properly combined and that affect towards the logo is enhanced by the congruence between the consumer perceived gender and the logo perceived gender, in the masculine gender perception.
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