Now, I know you’re probably thinking along one of these lines:
“We paid a lot of money for that logo, and I want people to see it!”
“I’m reinforcing my company’s brand by showing my logo on each slide.”
“That’s the way our template was designed.”
I would counter that if you start and end strongly during your presentation, with a good title slide that has your logo on it and an ending slide with your logo and contact information, then people aren’t going to suddenly forget that they’re at the XYZ Company presentation during slides 2-48.
Branding has many aspects; logos are just a part of it. A company’s brand identity comes across in the designs they choose, the typography, the style of photographs and/or illustrations, the color palette, the type of messaging they employ (e.g., playful, serious, trustworthy, irreverent), their jingle, uniforms or clothing color, etc. etc. etc. These things come into play in all components of a company’s marketing mix, including the PowerPoint presentations.
Need more convincing? Well, let’s think of the logo-on-every-slide deck as a real-life conversation:
“Hello there, I’m Bob Jones of Bob Jones Investments. Thanks for visiting Bob Jones Investments today! I’m Bob Jones of Bob Jones Investments. How can I help you? I’m Bob Jones of Bob Jones Investments. I specialize in retirement planning. I’m Bob Jones of Bob Jones Investments.”
You see what I’m getting at here? People don’t need a constant reminder of where they are, who you are, why they came there, and what company you’re from.
You need more convincing? Well, how about this: your logo’s taking up a lot of real estate on the slide, room that could otherwise be used to get your message across.
Take a look at the slide on the left. Because the logo is part of the footer and must remain separate from other slide elements, it is taking up about a quarter of the slide! It’s competing visually for our attention with the graph because of the clashing colors and all that white space surrounding it.
In the slide on the right, the logo is gone so the graph can be bigger, placing the emphasis on the data.
So, not insulting the intelligence of your audience and having more room for important information on each slide. Pretty compelling reasons not to put your logo on every single slide, eh?
Your Turn
What do you think? Is it important for you to have your company’s logo on every slide in the deck? Why or why not?
lmfdesign.wordpress.com 
I completely agree with your two points.
With the clients and companies I deal with – there is a lot of fear of removing the logo, and going away from the brand template. It’s a pity that when companies have their standard ppt templates designed, usually as an after-effect of the latest brand (re)work, that the ppt template is (a) an afterthought, and (b) only looked at in the context of how it appears in the style guidelines. It’s almost always viewed devoid of content. That would be like buying the clothes completely off the rack – never trying them on, and just guessing how they are going to look on you.
Well said! I agree that it’s far better to start and end with your logo, and leave it off your regular slides.
In fact, I suggest only ever showing the logo by itself:
(From there, check out the post about blacking out your slides, too. In it, you’ll find a unique use for your logo, which links your brand with a pleasant audience experience – the reverse of what most speakers do!)
Would love to hear your thoughts on those, and by all means leave a link back to your own post if you like.
Hi, Craig. Thanks for your response; it’s a great idea! I think that having a giant logo on an otherwise black slide is daring and memorable. I wanted to let you know that this blog is currently inactive and that you can access my current blog, Cheating Death by PowerPoint, here: http://www.lauramfoley.com/wordpress/learning-center/