This is an incredibly naïve understanding of how branding and human cognition work. To claim a corporate logo is a “neutral placeholder” is to ignore the entire multi-trillion dollar industry of marketing and the last century of psychological research.

A logo is not a “placeholder” but instead it’s the visual distillation of a brand’s entire propaganda campaign.

Every commercial, billboard, and sponsored post you’ve ever seen for that brand has worked to create a subconscious association between that symbol and a set of feelings, aspirations, or identities (Nike = “achievement”, Coca Cola = “taste”, Apple = “innovation/creativity”, and whatever other crap). Seeing the logo fires that neural pathway without the “prerequisite” for a full ad. The commercial already happened in our heads, across years. And it still constantly does under capitalism, hence commodity fetishism is a thing.

The primary goal of all advertising is not to make you buy something right now, but to ensure their brand is the first one you think of when you have a need. A logo constantly flashing in your visual field does exactly that. It’s a maintenance ad, whether deliberate or not, keeping the brand’s presence active in your subconsciousness.

It is a territorial claim on mental space, and by arguing that their symbols have a right to exist in our public and digital spaces “just for identification,” corporations are claiming a right to permanent, free real estate in our minds.

It’s almost like calling a national flag of any country “just a piece of colored cloth” because it ignores the immense weight of symbolic meaning, cultural conditioning, and ideological power that whatever given symbol carries. In this case, it’s a flag that flies not for a nation or people but for the empire of capital. Even if it was a defunct company, it still once served this purpose, even if now “retired.”