The new Pepsi logo is popping up everywhere on Ad blogs. The corporate Mega Giant took five months to develop it and will spend a billion dollars to update their 21 year old wavy thing.
That means repainting trucks, rewrapping vending machines, replacing stadium signage and sending out new point-of-sale materials…and that’s just the beginning; picture anything with a logo. Letterhead, briefcases, those slick polo shirts and all of their wonderful corporate clothing, even the napkins in the cafeteria. All will need to change. I still see trucks with logos from the late ‘90’s on one of the brands I used to work on. The is a massive undertaking.
According to Pepsi leadership, each brand has it’s own version:
Pepsi’s logo is a smile, Diet Pepsi looks like a grin, and Pepsi Max will be a full laugh. Hmm. It’s so…what’s the best way to say this…well intentioned, yet horribly unclear, and more confusing than memorable.
It’s a great example of a marketer telling us what they want us to know, not what we might be interested in.
In general, I think change is good, but this is very expensive, very corporate change. If Pepsi thinks people are going to remember the smile distinctions between the different products, they’ve been to one too many logo design presentations.
Some have described the new logo as asscrack. I wouldn’t go that far, but Coke has been kicking ass in the marketing world. And I think Pepsi blinked.
4 comments:
Hi Danny,
thanks for the link. I think it is absolutely mind boggling the amount of money being spent on changing over to this logo. Particularly when it doesn't even look good!
Jennifer
ha!
my question is, at what price is changing logo necessary?
last time i checked, nike has had that same damn swoosh and they're doing pretty well.
but i like seeing co.s taking this kind of risk. and the intricate differences of diet, max, and regular pepsi is good fodder for bloggers and newspapers (ahem) and might be successful as sheer pr prank.
then again, those old faded pepsi trucks from the 90s are sweet. they should not be touched.
In an age of massive consumer ADHD, I think this is another example of how big brands are throwing out huge equity for the sake of "newness".
Big CPG companies are scrambling to eke out fractions of percentage points in market share all for the sake of stockholders and the BoD's. I think the best brands like Pepsi will be able to do for the foreseeable future is maintain what they've got, which in their case, is not a bad thing.
"Throwing out equity for the sake of 'Newness'" is the new mantra of much of corporate America. One probable result: It's likely that we'll see fewer and fewer big, enduring ideas. Shame.
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