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MARKETING | Noah Brier

A Rant on Branding

Just a few thoughts on the hubbub around some of the big rebrandings of late.

February 12, 2009 | RSS | EMAIL | PRINT | 19 COMMENTS

The Tropicana and Pepsi rebranding has created lots of buzz around the old blogosphere, mostly with people hating on the new logos and accompanying materials. As I have both read and had conversations about both over the last few days, I thought maybe it was worth getting all my thoughts down here.

To start, I mostly think debating logos is a dumb exercise. I mean, it's fine, but logos and brands do not exist in a vacuum. No one is seeing the Pepsi logo without any other context (they are in a store, reading about it in a newspaper, seeing it on a billboard, etc.). It's never ONLY about the logo.1

So why, then, is there so much hubbub around them? Well, I've got a few thoughts on that as well (some hypotheses and others from actually working with clients on logos). First off, I think the biggest reason companies rebrand themselves is that they actually want to prove something to themselves. They, as a company, are feeling like they've fallen out of touch and a rebranding is seen as just the solution to rally the troops and get them feeling like the company is really committed to the change they're all hoping for. Honestly, does anyone really think that consumers are walking away from the new Pepsi brand and advertising coming out of it that Pepsi all of a sudden is anything more than sugar water? (Doubtful.)

What's more, the hubbub is pushed along by the large media buys and PR pushes that happen in parallel (after all, what's a rebranding that no one knows about?) All of a sudden the new logo is in your face all the time and people start to comment on it. Do I think any of this has any real impact on the sales of the product? Not really. I mean, I think blanketing the world with advertising does, of course, but whether someone likes your logo or not doesn't.

At the end of the day I think the biggest thing a logo does is help consumers categorize your brand/product. Is it cheap or expensive? Is it trustworthy or not? Of all the examples in Brand New's worst logos of 2008 the one that sticks out the most is WGN's redesign. To me at least, that logo looks like something that comes from a half-assed television network. Can you imagine NBC or CBS ever having a logo that looked that amateur? No. The logo informs your opinion of the brand (at least if you have no other information about it). Do I think Xerox's redesign actually changes much? Not really. Most of the world already has a perception of Xerox and that won't change a great deal from a little bit of extra round on the edges.

Finally, I leave you with a point I made about the Tropicana redesign. In rebranding themselves they managed to make their packaging look more generic. While the design community freaks their collective shit about this, it may be a great thing for the brand with the economy the way it is. Think about it: If people pick it up, thinking it's the store brand, and then get to the front of the store, they're pretty likely to buy it. Who knows if this will work or not, but the point is that you can't disconnect the business from the design. After all, nobody would ever approve the cost of rebranding (think about all the stuff that needs replacing) if you don't think there's going to be some return on your investment.

1 Just to give a quick anecdote, I had a bunch of people ask me to add a logo for their either yet-to-be-formed or relatively obscure company to Brand Tags. My answer was always no for a simple reason: Brand Tags is measuring brand perception, people need to know about you to have a perception. If they are just looking at some logo they've never seen before their honest reaction would be to blow it off because they've never seen it before (the majority) or be curious to find more (the minority). Of course, in a context like Brand Tags it would actually be a different option, people would comment on some portion of the logo. They'd say something about the color, the shape or even whether they liked it or not. The thing is: This is completely useless information. No consumer will ever be asked to judge a logo. That just doesn't happen.

Update (2/11/09): In response to a comment (and to clear it up), I wanted to add this: "I was definitely not implying design doesn't matter (or even that branding doesn't matter). Just that you can't look at either in a vacuum."


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COMMENTS

1Matt Daniels

Why do companies redesign? Brand managers are constantly lamenting all of those negative associations on Brandtags. The logo, color palette, site aesthetics, copy: these are the elements that companies can control. It's probably cheaper (and easier) to try these tools first than alter the product/experience and reform customer perceptions.

To your final point on whether the design even matters (which nicely parallels Alan's post on TV commercials): I spend a ton of time on DieLine; I can't quite accept that design cannot change a consumer's perception beyond product positioning. I mean, some of those designs just blow my mind!

February 12, 2009

2Noah Brier

Thanks matt, I was definitely not implying design doesn't matter (or even that branding doesn't matter). Just that you can't look at either in a vacuum. (I'm actually going to add this as an update to the post.)

February 12, 2009

3peter spear

first of all, it's a testament to brand and design that it's diminution can cause so much handwringing and naysaying. both do far more than simply cue premium-ness and trust.

i think this generic bit is nonsense and taking the design wildly out of context. and it's dangerous to assume that any brand would 'down-scale' their design according to the economic woes. instead, i think they were thinking aboutt the shopper.

we all know what it's like to confront a shelf crowded with screaming brand logos, varieties, etc. 100 strongly branded tropicana packs on a shelf is a visual nightmare. 100 lightly branded tropicana packs on a shelf is a visual invitation.

February 12, 2009

4stephanie gerson

seemingly unrelated to this post but not really:

"No consumer will ever be asked to judge a logo. That just doesn't happen."

why not? in the evolving era of (here we go) social media and user-generated content, I'd be surprised if we haven't already seen consumers asked to judge a logo and, soon enough, to participate in creating/evolving it....

February 12, 2009

5Noah Brier

@Peter: You really think the generic thing is bullshit? These brands are out there getting killed by store brands, why wouldn't they try something?

@Stephanie: Yeah, that's fine. But it's a dumb way of doing things. People are terrible at telling you what they want. None of us understand why people react the way they do to things (partly because there are a million reasons).

February 12, 2009

6peter spear

i think we're probably making the same point. i just contest the use of the generic language. store brand aren't winning only on price. they're winning largely on branded value.

and i also think generic overlooks the real strategic advantage this design delivers in a shopping experience.

instead of the highly designed one-to-one 'branding' of their past packaging (designer love), i'd call it wall-to-one branding, claiming the category from a distance with clarity.

February 12, 2009

7Michael Netter

I don't think you need to qualify your comments. Design of this sort really doesn't matter. Everything works (or does not) equally well. What a silly conceit. The only value is that it keeps aficianados entertained and some employed -- not a bad thing.

February 14, 2009

8Alan Wolk

If you've ever had the pleasure to see certain design shops pitch a logo, Noah, it's quite a trip: they really say things like "the blue represents purity while the triangle under the brand name indicates the delta or change..."

It's all you can do to keep a straight face.

I've always said in my next life I want to found one of those large design and branding shops: millions of dollars in fees for something that has little if any effect on consumers, brand names (Accenture???) that you think "damn, give me a half million and I'd come up with 10 better names.)

But your initial hypothesis is correct, especially with regard to familiar packaged goods. There's a famous (ish) cartoon from the early 90s done in the UK. It shows a pollster interviewing a housewife and she's saying "Well, it used to be my favorite laundry detergent until they went and changed the typeface."

Sort of sums it up.

February 15, 2009

9jeff

i'm looking at a bottle of diet mountain dew and it just says, "diet mtn dew"

so...."o,u,n,a,i" got bounced out of a job.

http://www.ounai.com/

mountain dew hates asian parts companies.

February 15, 2009

10John Gerzema

Great post Noah.
Every communications discipline, whether advertising, design, digital, social media, SEO/SEM etc -- each try to reinforce they are 'specialists' in what is a generalist world. But with a brand, it's never one thing, it's many things.
So just because the new Pepsi logo kind of reminds me of sonic the hedgehog, I'm not going to stop drinking Pepsi. But if their ads go bad, the twittering gets negative or they change their formula, then I'll have another look.

February 16, 2009

11Ana Andjelic

When I was thinking about “logos in the world of their own”, I related it to the fallacy of the idea of “brand power”. For a while now it’s been clear that the power of logos to generate sales is not strong anymore – which just indicates that the concept of “brand power” and its measurement was a flawed thinking from the very beginning. Marketing people used to think (and to the great extent still do) that the logo is the brand's most valuable asset. And that it has a value in its own right = that is, that it not only signifies something of value, but that it is a value in itself. Put a logo on whatever, and its value increases.

This rationale basically did nothing but created an increasing separation between the world of “brand power” and the world of actual sales (think brand recognition vs market cap). Not necessarily correlated at all.

As for digital brands, and almost totally shifted the importance logos/design. In digital, they really don’t mean that much, unless the redesign contributes to the better user experience and hence more traffic & time spent on the site. Which of course is super-measurable and creates a direct correlation between design & brand “power”. If it only were that clear why Tropicana redesigned its packaging… I suspect that even they don’t know for sure.

Per what you say about the role of logos, you may be interested to read James Surowiecki’s real old article “Decline of Brands” where he talks about a “reverse” brand halo.

February 16, 2009

12Jared Gruner

What's up Noah? I'll chuck two more minor points into the fray:

1) Sometimes, change is good for the sake of change. It keeps things fresh. It's an implicit reminder that you exist.

2) As for everyone hating on Pepsi/Tropicana in our little echo chamber, isn't enough enough? I swear, people in this industry love to hate on everything. Their clients, co-workers, bosses, and every other untalented agency. Thanks for keeping things intelligent here.

February 18, 2009

13Arthur Soleimanpour

To add to the circle jerk:
That Pepsi logo changes up every ten years or so (maybe never so drastically). This is a testament to how B-Team their brand is and, to Noah's point, how insecure the people working there are in their brand.

Let's talk design:
The Tropicana re-design seems based on Method cleaning products and the modern look of organic/natural products. I know that Tropicana is neither, but why not appeal to that look if it's what is coming next? Unfortunately for them, that aesthetic is a goner....it's too bad it takes big companies forever to make these decisions. Which aesthetic is in? Why would I tell you? Sharing information with your peers and open source culture is also a goner.

February 19, 2009

14Benton Jones

Rebranding is like Feng Shui to me even if you don't really need it the Feng Shui guru is still going to rearrange your furniture claim it's science and charge you a grotesque amount but the energy should flow your way.

I'm just thinking out loud here, see if you can follow me. Since rebranding in 2009 is definitley in. It's about time we update that old tawdry American flag. "These colors don't run" and they also don't go with a new pair of Air Force Ones or really get in your face enough to reach our Web 2.0 14-22 freedom fries demographic. What we need here is a Pepsi meets Shrek meets Barack meets Apple to stay hip and young but still appeal to the suits in Washington.

February 19, 2009

15Michael Raisanen

Great post.

I believe that brand identity is slave to an evolving culture as everything else. A bit like car design or fashion; you can look at it and easily place it in a geographic, chronological, cultural, economic, etc... context.

The cycle with brands just tends to be slower, every ten years or so. The orange juice needs to look fresh.

The interesting thing here is that both Tropicana and Pepsi are (were) adopting a modernist clean minimal (swiss?) approach. Seen from that perspective PepsiCo might indeed have strategized that this would enable them to escape the need to update every decade. They were trying to achieve timelessness.

Helveticaness.

In any case, I think it is pretty dumb of them to be so reactive. A lot of people tend to resist change no matter what. But still, we're talking juice and soda... a gazillion dollar industry.

February 23, 2009

16anish

Hey you may want to look at this article! It talks about Tropicana scrapping the changes made to its packaging.

http://www.swiss-miss.com/2009/02/tropicana-reverts-back-to-old-packaging-wow.html

February 24, 2009

17Emily Goligoski

The thing I'm even more interested in than the undending conversation about logo redesigns is things that could be more functional--Design Observer ran a great piece recently on what needs to be fixed: http://designobserver.com/archives/doentry38869.html

February 24, 2009

18Geoffrey Blair

Pepsi like many companies shoot too soon and attempt to quickly clean up their mark due to the embarassing situation that they did not did not take their time. New designs come in all shapes and sizes and it takes time to become acclimated.

March 2, 2009

19David Langton

I don't know if the generic approach will ultimately help Tropicana, but I hate the idea of walking away from a brand design that allowed us over 40--who can't read anything anymore-- to simply pick out our flavor by reaching for the little orange/stawberry/banana drawing. My take on logos:
http://langtoncherubino.com/blog/2009/02/24/logos-vs-mythos/

March 12, 2009