Interesting analysis of some refreshed logos in the New York Times, with the hat-tip, as I've done so many times before, to Jason Kottke.The article looks at companies including Walmart, Kraft, Cheer detergent, Stop & Shop, Super Fresh, QuickChek, Australia's Woolworths, food distributor Sysco(whose name always makes me feel funny since my dad spent 44 years working for another Sysco entirely) and the company formerly known as Blackwater and is now called Xe (pronounced Zee), which have all unveiled new logos or wordmarks recently.
Other than generic interest, I found this interesting because we're at the beginnings of a discussion at my day job about whether it's time to change logos, tinker with our brand, or do a full rebranding exercise.According to the article, we should "Behold the new breed of corporate logo [as] non- threatening, reassuring, playful, even child-like. Not emblems of distant behemoths, but faces of friends."
Fair enough. I can see why companies want to take on those characteristics. But the question for me is whether their actions and activities reflect that.
For me, the question that comes to mind is what are companies doing -- OTHER than the logo -- to shift their image. And the point that comes to mind is that analyzing these logos separately from their brands -- and we all should know that the brand is more than a logo -- is a mug's game.
And one big problem I just discovered -- if you Google "Xe blackwater" you get to ... someone else's site. In fact, there appears not to be a global Xe site, and Xe.com is a foreign-exchange site. Blackwater.com takes you to http://www.yeah.com/
Why have a name/logo change if you're not going to have 
anything to back it up?Anyone have great / terrible examples of relogoing that has backfired on the company in question? I call dibs on the Tropicana disaster (old one left; new one right), which must be destined to go down in history as one of the biggest pullbacks EVER.
Ciao,
Bob.
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