A jagged little “brand”
June 4, 2007
Post Haste will be up and running again, soon. Just let me get out from under my pile.
Until then, I bring you the new logo for the London 2012 Olympics.
A world wide spotlight. A huge event that will bring millions into the city. The freakin’ Olympics, right? And this…THIS is the best they could come up with? This looks like it’s representing the 1994 Olympics.
It looks a little dated, is all I’m saying.
Of course, who am I to criticize - I couldn’t create a logo if my job depended on it. That’s not really the point. Aside from this logo being ugly, my beef is that the London 2012 Committee keeps calling this logo a “brand.”
From the London 2012 website:
The new London 2012 brand was designed by Wolff Ollins. The design brief was for an emblem that represented the four key ‘brand pillars’ of access, participation, stimulation and inspiration, culminating in the brand vision of ‘Everyone’s Games’.
A brand can’t be created out of thin air, like a headline or logo. A brand is the result of years of experience and the feelings and thoughts of your customer. A brand can be influenced by a logo, but it isn’t the logo itself.
Coke didn’t create a brand by using white script on a red background. Coke created a brand by offering a fun experience in every aspect of the product — from the bottle shape to the commercials to the taste itself. They painstakingly crafted a set of feelings from years of experience and carefully-tweaked messages. And even then, Coke doesn’t own the brand. Its customers will change it whenever they see fit.
The consumer decides what a company’s brand is. It’s that company’s job to lead them in the right direction and give them something TO brand.
If they try to create the brand for the consumer, the consumer won’t respond. Simply put, the consumer doesn’t want to be told what to think.
Is a brand based on what the consumer thinks?
Or is it based on what the company wants the consumer to think?
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About HenkinSchultz
HenkinSchultz is an agency. An advertising and marketing and branding and design and production agency. All of those things, and then some.
But, underneath all that, we're really a bunch of thinkers. As in, we think about stuff, both pertinent and not, with and without boundaries, as if our lives depended on it. And this right here, Post Haste, is where we write about it.
Visit us at http://www.henkinschultz.com.