Great article from Forbes that sheds some useful insights on why and when to rebrand…
“Rebranding can be a good way to better reflect your company’s current focus and growth, but the process must be handled with the utmost care. Otherwise, you risk alienating your existing customers while failing to attract any new ones.“
Category: rebrand
Subway Reveals Major New Brand Look
Looking to connect with younger guests and cement its role as a fresh-food leader, Subway changed its logo, store design, and so much more.
Subway’s revamped design was built with the customer, and the future, in mind. Consider it Subway’s new duds to the biggest party in foodservice.
On Monday, the chain with 45,000-plus units globally unveiled what it’s labeling the most extensive launch in company history: a massive brand evolution that affects everything from pictures and colors to function and form. The hefty investment, which began in earnest around two years ago and will take “multiple years to rollout,” will help Subway remain at the forefront of a category it has historically fronted—freshness and quality—and broaden its appeal with younger customers, says Chris Carroll, Subway’s chief advertising officer.
“We can now go in with confidence and get more aggressive in our engagement,” Carroll says. “It’s like going into a party when you have a new outfit on. You feel more confident than if you were in an old pair of jeans.” Read more here.
How Uber Can Fix Its Reputation
“An arrogant behemoth”
From Yahoo Financial:
Dean Crutchfield, a New York-based branding specialist, struck an even more dire tone than Kerris.
“The first thing they have to recognize is that brands, like people, get sick,” Crutchfield explained. “Uber needs to admit it’s slightly broken. This was a cool, game-changing brand, and now it’s an arrogant behemoth. It sort of lost itself in its success. One has to respect customer and driver’s emotions, and I think they’ve forgotten about that. It’s a problem not just of their business, it’s a problem of the leadership. That leadership reflects poorly on the brand.”
Crutchfield pointed to United Airlines’ (UAL) recent controversy, in which a passenger was forcibly removed from a flight. United CEO Oscar Munoz exacerbated the public backlash by initially blaming the passenger for the brouhaha. United subsequently issued several apologies and promised a sweeping review of policies, particularly around crew behavior and passenger incentives.
“[T]here was a real arrogance where the CEO did not recognize their weaknesses and faults,” Crutchfield said.
Uber, for its part, knows it has a serious problem on its hands. Kalanick told employees in March he planned on hiring a COO “who can partner with me to write the next chapter in our journey.” Uber board member Arianna Huffington, meanwhile, is helping lead an “urgent” investigation into one engineer’s sexual harassment claims against the company.
But while that’s certainly a start, it’s clear company-wide changes to Uber must go far deeper. Full article.
How A Logo’s Color Shapes Your Mind
Turn Me On
Gr
eat brands are about storytelling and brand voice success comes when you mitigate the turned-off reaction.
Wired’s Best New Logos of 2016
From Instagram to Budweiser, here are the year’s most notable new logos from Wired http://snip.ly/74erj
As Wired put it, “It was a messy year for logos. The presidential candidate with penetrative, Web-1.0-style graphics won. America’s largest art museum drew ire from critics for deviating from its iconic emblem. The Tokyo Organizing Committee scrambled to find a new symbol for the 2020 Olympics, after its original selection faced allegations of plagiarism.
But it wasn’t all chaos. Trends emerged, like fold-over icons and pleasing gradient hues. Designs from the ’60s and ’70s found new life in clever brand revivals. And designers continued to strive towards visual identities that are equal parts user-friendly, attractive, and inventive. We exit 2016 with more logos than we entered with. Below, a selection of the year’s most notable work.”
Procter & Gamble Co. is striking back in the razor wars
Category busters abound, P&G fires a salvo with a digital campaign taking aim at online rival Harry’s and Dollar Shave Club. Here’s what I shared with Sharon Terlep at The Wall Street Journal:“Being less serious — and less ostentatious — is a smart move for Gillette, which turned consumers off with decades of marketing aimed at making men feel obligated to buy its razors. The category has been dominated by inadequacy marketing, with things like ‘The best a man can get,” Gillette’s tagline. The Dollar Shave Club and Harry’s come at it with something fun and innovative. The “Welcome Back” concept creates some curiosity, and that’s what it’s about. The question is: Is it too late?”
