This weekend I was walking through Target when I saw a board game that I'd never seen before. It's called "The Logo Board Game." My first thought was wondering why they could not come up with a more creative name for said board game. But then I thought about when we were talking about branding in class. A brand is not simply a logo on a product, but the logo certainly plays a role in a consumer identifying a brand. I watched a video from timetoplaymag.com that reviewed the board game. The man in the video described the game in a way that I found very interesting. He explained that the game is about how well you've been paying attention to the logos around you. I found this explanation interesting because it seemed like he was trying to promote the game as an educational tool. While I admit it definitely takes knowledge, to me, the game just proved to be another way that brands are infiltrating our world at an alarming rate.
I began to wonder how many hoops Spin Master toys had to jump through in order to put the hundreds of companies logos on their board game. Yet, I wondered if all these companies might have paid Spin Master for the free advertisement. It seems rather innocent, you buy the board game because it looks fun and it has the logos of brands you love, but maybe there are other motives behind it. For the companies featured in the game, it gets their name and angle out there even more. They do not have to bombard people with advertisements, they simply have to hope people want to play the game with all of their friends. It is extremely clever, but also a little unnerving once you really begin to think about it.
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