2021 has just begun and 3 major global brands (in diverse categories) have unveiled new brand logos.
Brand logo changes involve a lot of thought and rigour. Brand logos aren’t changed for a year or two, they are intended to last at least a decade. And thus, they normally also signal long term changes in the brand’s vision and ambition. These three brands do the same.
First up was Burger King. What’s notable about this change was that the idea was to put the product up front (Notice how the logo is quite literally sandwiching the brand name). Burger King also created a new font for it ‘Flame’ (font name I guess was aptly chosen to define the flame grill their burgers are cooked on) and it explores a food colour palette that indicates freshness of their ingredients. Interestingly, what stood out the most for me about their logo design thinking was how it was designed for a digital age customer who orders on a screen, with the focus on ensuring how the logo would work as well on a giant store signage as well as a small mobile screen! Now that’s definitely a brand with a clear view of the future.
Next was Pfizer which has been in the news for its development & deployment of its Covid vaccine. The work on the new brand logo apparently commenced in April 2019, at the start of global lockdowns triggered by Covid. The change was worked with a clear focus on being seen as a brand that is anchored in science. Remember not an easy task when your highest selling drug is Viagra! The vision is perfect – using science to find solutions for all of mankind’s ails – from Covid to treatments for cancer and other diseases. The logo, much like Burger King, is not a total overhaul. The font remains the same. What change sis the colour and the addition of the double helix, an ode to the DNA based science applied by the company. To back the new proposition goes the line “Science will win.” Watch their launch TVC here.
You can learn more about their brand identity at https://www.pfizer.com/our-visual-identity I loved the India focus, heartens me personally as my mother worked at Pfizer India for 33 years!
And finally it was General Motors. Not much in the logo change - going from upper case fonts to lower case. Perhaps indicative of the shift the industry is going through and GM's ambition is to invest in electric and autonomous vehicles over the next five years. The TVC heralds its future customers, calling them Generation E (no doubt for electric). It has change makers like Micheal Gladwell as also fitness instructor Cody Rigsby in his Peleton t-shirt. Watch it here.
With so much thought behind the logo, in my view it perhaps fall short on ambition. There is a lot that could have been done. Just a change in the font case type isn’t perhaps enough given the largeness of the technology change (& its environmental impact) proposed.
Do share your views below.
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