Chart of the Day: Apple Logo Makes You More Creative

Since the 1930's, I.B.M.'s motto was "Think" -- at least until it sold its PC division to Lenovo.

In 1997, Apple countered with "Think Different."

It seems Apple was onto something.

Researchers at Duke University and Waterloo University ran an experiment where they subliminally flashed either the Apple or I.B.M. logo on a computer screen and then asked the subjects, university students in this case, to come up with unusual uses for a brick.

The charts below show that students who were exposed to the Apple logo were more creative than their I.B.M.-primed counterparts both in terms of the number of different uses they came up with and the creativity of the new uses as measured by judges:

(The Delay and No Delay bars represent different experiments in which students were either asked to perform the creativity task immediately after getting exposed to a brand or with a 5-minute delay.)

The chart makes the differences in creativity appear larger than they actually were, but the results are statistically significant.

In a Duke University press release, one researcher says:

"Each of us is exposed to thousands of brand images every day, most of which are not related to paid advertising," said Gavan Fitzsimons. "We assume that incidental brand exposures do not affect us, but our work demonstrates that even fleeting glimpses of logos can affect us quite dramatically."

And this (from another researcher on the study also named Fitzsimons):

"This is the first clear evidence that subliminal brand exposures can cause people to act in very specific ways," said Grainne Fitzsimons. "We've performed tests where we've offered people $100 to tell us what logo was being flashed on screen, and none of them could do it. But even this imperceptible exposure is enough to spark changes in behavior."

A similar study using logo for Disney and the E! channel found that people who were exposed to the first logo were much more honest than subjects exposed to the second.

While the results are, in a word, CREEPY, there might actually be a silver lining:

"Instead of spending the majority of their money on traditional print and television advertising, companies with established brand associations such as Apple may want to give serious consideration to shifting more marketing resources to product placement opportunities and other forms of outreach that emphasize brief brand exposures," said Gavan Fitzsimons.

If that means less 30-second pre-rolls on the web, I'm all for it.

(Hat tip: Simon Jackman)