How Pervasive is a Brand?

Disclosure

Although I studied business and finance in college, I have never really put much importance into brand names. Well, I guess I actually do – I am loyal to particular brands of vehicles, food and clothes. But I never realized how much our brains imprint about brands thanks to the constant deluge of advertisements. Until I had kids…

It quickly became evident to me that the money spent on marketing to our young ones did have a HUGE impact. My girls started pointing out logos for clothes, movies and more. Many of which we had never heard of, but they were very familiar with thanks to 30-second spots on Nickelodeon and The Disney Channel. I won’t even mention how many As-Seen-On-TV products they put on their Christmas list!

The folks at Spin Master Games obviously were aware of the power of branding when they created The Logo Board Game. The object is to answer questions about popular brands and logos, which advance you on the board towards a Winning Zone.

There are three types of question cards:

Picture cards – These have a picture on them that the question relates to.

Theme cards – They have answers that all share a common theme.

Pot Luck cards – The most random, having general knowledge brand and logo questions.

In addition, each card has four questions on it coded by color. Every time you answer a question correctly you move your pawn forward to the next square of that color. You also get to keep answering questions and move your pawn as long as you continue your winning streak (up to the four questions on the card). Miss a question and it is then asked to the next person, who gets to move their pawn if they answer affirmatively. They also get to continue the question line.

Once a player reaches the end of the board, they move into the Winning Zone. In order to win the game you must answer either two questions in a row correctly OR one red question. It is at that point that everyone else is trying their hardest to prevent you from getting asked ANY questions at all. If you aren’t asked any, you can’t win!

We were unsure if this would be a good family game due to the differences in age between us. But as I mentioned before, thanks to the constant barrage of marketing to our kids, there were many logos and brands that they knew quite a bit about!

The Logo Board Game is rated for ages 12 and up, but we can only guess it is because of the need to know a wide range of eras and not because of any difficulty learning game. In fact, you could easily go through the 400 included cards and create an easier subset to play with that targets the ages of the players involved. I know I sure would have appreciated the removal of some of the questions about current cereal lines!

You can find this great Spin Master Games title at almost every major retailer as well as on Amazon. For under $25 it makes a great party game that doesn’t require specific knowledge of a category (I’m looking at you, Mr. Sports Trivia expert). In fact, you’ll probably be surprised at some of the obscure jingles and phrases that you do remember from way back when!