03.18
[This post was originally published on FutureBrand's FBlog.]
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is integrally linked to brand strategy. An company’s approach to CSR can differentiate it from competitors, lend credence to its purported brand promise, and strengthen the brand’s relevance and emotional currency with customers. But making sure CSR activities are “on brand” doesn’t only benefit the brand. When organizations align these initiatives with a well-defined brand, they can also give back more effectively.
In the aftermath of the tragic earthquake and tsunami in Japan last week,
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06.12
I just read through yet another brilliant post on BrandCultureTalk, one of my favorite industry blogs. First off, I like that the post makes use of the words “shenanigans,” “confiscatory,” and “sophistry” (which I admit I had to look up). But beyond a perfect score on the verbal SATs, the author of this post clearly has a knack for dissecting a complex issue (in this case, the ailments of the credit card industry), doing research to support his/her points of view, and stringing together an engaging article that manages to be relevant without being trite (a bit of a rarity in articles about branding/marketing).
The post is essentially a diatribe on the frustrating attributes of the First PREMIER Bank Platinum MasterCard and the credit card industry as a whole. Which brings me to the title of this post: some industries just suck.
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06.05
[Originally published on The B2B Brand Debate]
Bill Marsh’s article in The New York Times a few days ago pointed out that a number of companies have recently redesigned their corporate logos, replacing “emblems of distant behemoths” with updates that are “non-threatening, reassuring, playful, even child-like.” The article includes a nice Flash click-through showing before and after logos. Marsh’s assessment is that these redesigns are aimed at addressing “the economy, environment, image repair,” and that while logos are meant to be differentiating, “there are striking similarities among recent redesigns.”
He’s right to point out the similarities, but the trend he’s seeing—which includes lowercase lettering, “softer” fonts, and lightened colors—began well before the recession. I first noticed it in 2005, while at Interbrand during the design of the new AT&T logo. Shortly after it launched, it seemed, Chevron and Allstate made very similar changes to their logos, incorporating lighter colors, rounder type, and highlights and shading that give the logos a 3D feel.
So while not all of these changes are reactions to the current economy, they do raise some awkward questions about logo design. I turned to Michael Dula, RiechesBaird’s resident logo guru, for some answers.
Should companies change their logos as a reaction to current events—changes in the economy, an increase in popular environmentalism, or even their own PR blunders?
Dula:
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03.16
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It’s unfortunate when a descriptive name overstays its welcome. Companies pursue new product or service lines in an attempt to grow, technologies change, and descriptive names become irrelevant. There are plenty of examples: American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T), Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing (3M), and Southwest Airlines, which no longer operates only in the Southwest. When you don’t want to stand for that one thing anymore, your options are pretty much limited to changing the name or abbreviating the name (and rendering it meaningless, a la IBM–International Business Machines).
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