I mentioned here the much discussed Pepsi Rebranding.

Fast Company revealed a leaked pdf that outlines the thinking behind the controversial new Pepsi logo.

If with this the designer team is trying to get excuses for their results and 5 months of working or the million dollar invoice, then they should listen to what everybody comment on this: it is a lame excuse.

Mixing gravitation in the Pepsi galaxy, energy fields, relativity of space and time, some mythical perfect proportions, some da Vinci Code and some smiley faces the document is trying, without a final conclusion, to make us stand up in ovation by the end of the reading.

Well, we will stand up…. And leave.

Download the document here.

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It’s not the firs nor the last of big brands that seems to think that their slumping sales will recover by slight changes in their branding. I’m not sure that this is the right answer or just an effort in the wrong direction at not the right time.

It took the designers five months to finalize the (new?) iconic logo. Five months and $1 million dollars for the design.

The purpose of the rebranding? “Making the logo more dynamic and more alive … [it is] absolutely a huge step in the right direction” said Frank Cooper, Pepsi’s VP-portfolio brands

So far, branding experts are in both camps. “It’s tilting the whole brand presentation from a classic expression of uniqueness and quality into something that is much more humorous, almost flippant,” said Tony Spaeth, an identity consultant. “It worries me that it is less durable, less permanent and classic. It comes across as more of a campaign idea than an enduring brand expression.” 

The new logo is Pepsi’s 11th in its 110-year history. Five logos have been introduced in the past 21 years, with the last update in 2002. 

Pepsi Logo

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I’d start with the Apple Computers who dropped computer from its name. The move is rather normal considering that iPod or iTunes are two of the main products of Apple Inc. and was announced in the same time with the buzzy launching of iPhone. Now, getting to this, cannot help myself not to admire the Apple capacity to create a buzz in the media, no matter that we’re talking about the internet of the classic mass media. The phone they launched is, I admit, a work of art and has a lot of great features but I wouldn’t hurry to name it neither a Blackberry killer, a computer or a smart phone. It’s more like a beautifully designed, big brand sustained swiss knife of mobiles.

Anyway, the iPhone road is not clear yet, at least in terms of naming and branding as Cisco sued Apple over the name itself considering they are marketing a VOIP phone with the same name for quite a while now. I wonder on this what made Steve Jobs go on with the name at the Macworld conference: the trust in the Apple brand power to impose the iPhone on the market (along with its previous similar names products: iPod, iTunes or iMac) or the time pressure of the launch. There were even rumors (not confirmed after all) that they already changed the name to iTouch Mobile. Well not yet.

Speaking about Apple’s phone, is worth mentioning its (two years in advanced blindly signed) exclusivity distribution contract with Cingular. And coming to this is also worth mentioning that AT&T launched its largest-ever ad campaign yesterday geared toward absorbing Cingular Wireless into the AT&T brand. More than that. AT&T will also be launching a campaign to rebrand BellSouth as AT&T. AT&T acquired BellSouth for $80 billion in December – the largest telecommunications merger in U.S. history. Cingular was a joint property of AT&T and BellSouth. Now that’s a huge rebranding effort to follow.

Citigroup, the global banking giant, is shrinking its name. Executives are prepared to rebrand the company “Citi” and to fold up its familiar red umbrella and instead use a logo with a stylized arc above the name. The design is similar to the “citi” logo that now appears on much of its consumer advertising, office buildings and credit cards. A rollout could begin as early as next month.

Pepsi is introducing 35 different packaging designs as part of a global brand revamp aimed at bringing younger consumers closer to the brand. It is only the 11th time the brand has changed its look in its 109-year history. The graphics, created by US agencies, will use themes associated with teens and young adults. Looking to get a little extra pop out of its sponsorship of the Super Bowl XLI Halftime Show, Pepsi announced it is giving away a jewel-encrusted Pepsi can valued at $100,000 as well as Super Bowl tickets for life.

Now, getting to the soon to come Super Bowl and Time Magazine person of the year 2006, just found via Church of the Customer Blog an interesting initiative of some advertisers that have jumped on the citizen-created bandwagon by inviting everyday people to help create their ads. Lining up are Chevrolet, Doritos, and the NFL. The contests for Chevy and the NFL are to submit ideas for commercials, not actual videos. Winning ideas are made into ads by professional agencies.

And, in the end, since I got next to sports, even though I’m planning a separate blog post on this, it has to be mentioned as an important start-of-the-year-branding-event and a subject follow, the multi-million dollar Beckham brand relocation in USA.

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As the people who deliver the brand promise are employees, making sure they understand and can deliver the brand to customers is vital—especially for companies within the service industry, where the relationship between employees and customers essentially is the product the company sells.

Re-branding takes time. The planning process that produces a new brand can take as long as two years. Educating employees about the new brand, and its implications on the company and their work, can also last years. That effort typically starts several weeks to several months before the new brand is unveiled to customers and continues after the official unveiling to external audiences.

The first step in getting employees on board is to get leadership on message. Once the leadership has been engaged, HR can begin to disseminate the new brand into lower levels of management.

The objective of the internal communications effort is to inspire employees to embrace and own the new brand. You want employees to hear first what their customers will eventually hear. The next step, training, even if it tends to be most intense in the months and weeks leading up to the external launch of the new brand, it does not necessarily end after the public unveiling.

Engaging events to commemorate a launch are often a component of internal re-branding efforts, and they usually occur immediately before the new brand is unveiled to customers and the public. When communicating about a new brand, there is no one way right for every person. So, deliver the message in as many ways as possible to reinforce the message.

The brand is about our client’s interaction with your company and your employees. It’s a small but crucial distinction. The aspect of the brand that matters most inside the company is an intangible one: how employees’ understanding of the company’s brand influences their behavior, whether they interact directly with customers or not.

Full article with details and examples, here.

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Formerly known Mastercard International has a new corporate name, MasterCard Worldwide. The company is also unveiling a new corporate signature and adopting a new corporate tagline, The Heart of Commerce, to reflect the company’s globally integrated structure and its strategic vision of advancing commerce worldwide.However, the familiar consumer brands such as MasterCard credit and debit cards and the advertising slogan “Priceless” would stay in place.

The new corporate positioning will serve as a unifying business-to-business platform, and lead to global efficiencies in the way MasterCard Worldwide connects with customers, merchants and shareholders through all communications channels.

The three circles of the new corporate logo build on the familiar interlocking red and yellow circles of the MasterCard consumer brand, and reflect the company’s unique, three-tiered business model as a franchisor, processor and advisor.

More here.

UPDATE: More about MasterCard brand history.

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Smart marketers evolve their brands over time to keep them relevant. Some do it well, while others become the target of cynical bloggers. To gear your next rebrand for success, sidestep these all-too-common mistakes:

1. Clinging to history.
2. Thinking the brand is the logo, stationery or corporate colors.
3. Navigating without a plan.
4. Refusing to hire a branding consultant without industry experience.
5. Not leveraging existing brand equity and goodwill.
6. Not trying on your customer’s shoes.
7. The rebrand lacks credibility or is a superficial facelift.
8. Limiting the influence of branding partners.
9. Believing rebranding costs too much.
10. Not planning ahead for adaptation.
11. Bypassing the basics.
12. Not calling the call center.
13. Forgetting that people don’t do what they say. (They do what they do.)
14. Getting strong-armed or intimidated by consultants.
15. Putting the wrong person in charge.
16. Strategy by committee.
17. Rebranding without research.
18. Basing a rebrand on advertising.
19. Tunnel focus.
20. Believing you’re too small to rebrand.

Read the full reBrand PDF file The Top 20 Mistakes Marketers Make When Rebranding — And How to Avoid Them

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[Re]-branding doesn’t mean recycling with new slogans and logos, it means a comprehensive do over. And establishing a brand is only the beginning, as advertising, marketing and public relations follow with even bigger budgets to extend the brand and infuse it into consumer culture.

For those who do it right, the rewards are often off the scale.

Miami agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky, featured on the cover of BusinessWeek as “The Craziest Ad Guys in America,” are reeling it in for Virgin Atlantic Airways and Burger King with fanciful branded content that doesn’t follow traditional lines or overly committed media buys that suck up a year’s budget in no time.

In their own words, the CP+G boys “try to make the brand part of the pop culture,” relevant and very now.

That means going out into non-traditional routes like www.youtube.com where anyone, including ad agencies, can load video content and start a global conversation quickly. The content here is both bizarre and entertaining, with page views, comments and favorites recorded.

The firm has used eBay exclusively to sell brand toys and MySpace.com to push alter brand egos.

VW sales overall are up 20 percent, Virgin sales are up $50 million, and Burger King posted its first positive quarter earnings in a decade, according to the magazine.

And selling is what it’s really all about.

via. Full BW article here.

Tag: branding

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The tagline, ending the decades-long reign of “It’s everywhere you want to be,” is “Life takes Visa,” Lyons said. Although the tagline was used in the last couple of years in English-language communications in Latin American countries (actually Visa is using 5 different taglines for 6 different regions of the world – more here), TBWA\Chiat\Day decided to go with it and start promoting it next week during the Winter Olympics Openning ceremony.

The new brand campaign is the latest in a series of milestones marking Visa adapting its brand to its corporate evolution, with recently introduced new governance structure; new brand architecture, including a new logo and a new card design. More about the new branding campaign here: http://www.visa.com/advertising.

Tags: Visa, rebranding, re branding, slogan, tagline, life takes visa

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Starting from recently over-buzzed Atlanta re-branding, Ries is making a extremly good and sustained point about the need and the opportunity of rebranding, changing logos and slogans, or becoming “too creative” in terms of branding.

What leads cities, states, countries and companies to concoct meaningless, unmemorable slogans? I believe the culprit is “creativity.”

Every day of the week, advertising agencies are hired to create new, compelling branding strategies and fired when these new, compelling branding strategies don’t work.

The best example of the power of consistency is the Marlboro cowboy, who has been riding the range for 50 years. The advertising doesn’t win any awards, but it has taken the brand from nowhere to become the No. 1 selling cigarette brand in the world.

A powerful brand is not built by creativity, although there needs to be a creative spark to get the brand ignited. A powerful brand is built by consistency, year after year after year.

Basically if you have something that is working, don’t try to fix it. The re-branding decision is a tough one, as long as we do not have (re)branding in our minds a purpose (as some agencies have it), but as a tool for sustaining and growing the business.

Related posts:
Re-branding the Right Way

Tag: Re-branding, Rebranding

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Some re-branding exercises have been evolutionary, developing over time and in response to feedback and change in business requirements. But also, a lot of re-branding efforts fail, and fail expensively. Why is it that while some re-branding exercises succeed, others are left licking their wounds? The main reason for failure stems from the complexity of the task. Companies often jumps unprepared into an ill-conceived consolidation, leaving customers puzzled and business associates confused.

In re-branding there are steps to be taken, same ones needed to be follwed when a new corporate identity is to be set-up:

1. Research and recommendations

In this stage, identity, design, communications and behaviour audits conducted. There are established perceptions of the brand, its business and its behaviour.

2. Creation of the new identity

Consulting agency fulfils a brief for a new visual identity and communications strategy to introduce identity and change behaviour is developed.

3. Developing the detail

Development of credible, distinctive and coherent identity and yet, very important, consistent approach to communications throughout the organisation developed.

4. Launch and implementation

Choices made about scale and timing of change.

So what are the drivers for re-branding? In most cases re-branding is done in response to external factors, whether there is a corporate structural change, or a concern over external perceptions of the organisation and its activities. More rarely re-branding can rely on internal perceptions, like the perception of the company in relation to its competitors. This informal and internally focused approach may well produce a biased result, if the research phare is not done properly.

Next step, after the need is identified, is to set up objectives and the disparate drivers for re-branding are reflected in a diversity of objectives. The most common objective was to develop a new image or to adapt the image to the new corporate or market changes that occured.

Ascertaining the value of the new brand depends on the health of the brand’s key resources. These may be items such as product features, or the number of loyal customers, sales outlets and staff. However, companies can’t hope to sell more just because they have re-branded. Targets can be based on qualitative indicators as well, ie, perception, image, understanding, awareness as well as quantitative indicators including response rates, cost and profitability per account and life time value, among others. Qualitative indicators enable guidance at a creative, tone of voice and positioning level, whereas quantitative ones ensure that at a tactical level.

In all circumstances, it is critical to have a degree of control over consumers or trade during the changeover — either through existing distribution rights and channels, or through extensive public relations, advertising and promotion. Planning the transition is just as important; sound design and execution here can make the difference between success and failure.

The complex process of re-branding requires the involvement, not only of the project leadership team, but the involvement of staff is necessary, whether this consists in senior managers, or lower maagement levels or all staff. Also, customers should’t be left out of it.

The complexity, and therefore the resource-intensity, of the process, may require additional resources, such as external consultants. Being an infrequent process, the knowledge of experts, their dispassionate observation, and the extra hands they may be able to supply, should be considered.

Re-branding ia a complex and time consuming effort, than ussualy anticipated, thus the scale of the task should not be underestimated. Here is a list of critical success factors for the process:

• Establish key stakeholders, both external and internal
• Use external help to support change and to monitor and evaluate progress.
• Include staff in the development process, to ensure commitment to the change
• Communications must be continuous, consistent, sustained, and multilateral
• Tailor communications to the needs of the different targets
• Plan thoroughly; evaluate capacity and have contingency plans for potential crises
• Equip and prepare people properly
• Monitor and evaluate at all stages