By Heather Rast, Interactive Experience Manager
McDonalds may have dropped their “Supersize” menu upgrade due to increased attention on American’s diets and tendency to overconsume. But the “moderation” bandwagon isn’t exactly overcrowded, as evidenced by walking down any grocery or convenience aisle, attending any major sporting event, or flipping through any consumer magazine.
Fact is, brands are scrambling to reach their audiences, impress them repeatedly to help build affinity, and ultimately incite (lure?) them to trial through a myriad of seemingly unconventional ways. Sometimes the format is large, splashy, and in-your-face (uh, how about the beloved interstitial ads?). But occasionally it’s more subtle than that.
Enter the favicon. A pint-sized pictograph. A visual cue. A graphical stimulus processed by your brain as a brand entity you relate to, welcoming you like a warm blanket, and perhaps increasing your propensity for trial.
A recent Webiscope post, Completing Your Brand with a Favicon, inspired me to comment on favicons. The canvas on which to express your brand is only 16×16 or 256 pixels.
This little piece of real estate can be one of the power tools in your brand identity toolbox. While often displayed beside a bookmarked or favorite site, they are also on the tabs of tabbed browsers like Firefox and IE7, and in the address bar.
Favicons are also earning higher profiles as elements of many social bookmarking sites, syndication tools, and API-enabled mashups. Many blogs use favicon-based buttons to encourage visitors to hit Digg, Reddit, etc.
Favicons for mobile platforms is inevitable. Tiny and mighty, small yet pervasive.
