Bank-rolling a brand
Posted by Melissa on | June 7, 2007
What an interesting industry branding has become. I am not talking about labelling your cow so that if it strays next door you can tell it from those in the the neighbour’s herd. I am talking about the ‘identities’ that companies are using to represent or describe what they have to offer consumers.
Take the 2012 London Olympic Games’ brand as a case in point. What does it say to the average Mohammed (recently reported as the most common boys name in the UK)? A friend has suggested that it harks back to those baggie trousers worn by MC Hammer. It certainly screams bad eighties fashion statements with its hot pink faux lightening bolts - the sort of thing your mother said looked “jazzy” as you went off to the school social.
It is always important to work out how your brand will perform in the many diverse mediums that are used to reach a global audience. Unfortunately London 2012 has reportedly caused epileptics fits in those unfortunate enough to sit through the motivational television ad screening in Britain.
The best thing about the London 2012 brand is the eighties price that was paid for this piece of design excellence. In the era of bigger is better, $900,000 would have been considered a bargain. In 2012 it would pay for offsetting a lot of carbon emissions.
Perhaps the organisers are seeing the error of their ways but have run out of money and hope someone will give them a new freebie via the invitation to Create your own design on the official site.
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2 Responses to “Bank-rolling a brand”
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June 8th, 2007 @ 4:46 pm
I honestly don’t have much of an opinion about the logo. It is ugly but more interesting that most.
It has been designed to be controversial, which to me makes it “controversial”.
It certainly makes a good talking point and it is probably already more well known than the Beijing logo… Whatever that looks like.
The Olympics suck arse anyway. Athletics is boring and so is the swimming.
June 13th, 2007 @ 12:11 am
Ah yes, another spectacular victory for “earned ink” and “awareness”. Sadly I can almost hear the preamble as the scruffy creative sat in the boardroom holding the boards tightly to his chest before dropping the CEO bait line
“we think this an opportunity to do something quite innovative, something that steps outside of the square of event branding… we have considered a number of more predictable options however we don’t feel that these accurately reflect the collective intelligence of the people behind this event and those in this room today”.
To which the CEO only hears innovative, different thinking and intelligent, then takes one glance at the artwork notices it is spelt correctly and nods in approvement but not before he has justified his salary by saying “can we make the font a fraction bigger”