Branding

Chiquita Banana recently got a rebranding and introduced their sticker characters. Staying true to themselves with that familiar blue and yellow color scheme, it was imperative that they build upon their brand equity rather than start from scratch.

The client’s goals were kind of like that dream brief you get handed that simply says: “Make bananas cool.”. As a branding and design junkie myself I think this is one of the most awesome rebrands lately.
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Can’t wait for the Apple Tablet? Maybe you’re interested in the MacBook cake, a 100% edible rendering created by New York’s BCakeNY

The astoundingly detailed cake includes a wireless mouse, sugar Post-It notes and that silvery MacBook Pro sheen.

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Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola have been archenemies for over a hundred years. But although their main product is very similar in both taste and color, their branding strategies couldn’t be any further apart.

While Coca Cola has only been modifying their initial logo in a very subtle, almost ninja-like way (there’s been very little, but consistent changes, which only become apparent really when comparing the first one to the latest version), Pepsi instead kept reinventing their logo every bunch of years and have by now a pretty impressive number of “old” logos that would be enough material for almost a year of branding studies.

Let’s have a closer insight at the pros and cons of each strategy. Read Post »

An effective brand identity is commonly perceived as a good brand name and logo, trendy package design – dimensions which mainly concern visual senses. However, this common perception of branding is incomplete.

Human beings have five senses, so why would brand strategists leave four of them aside? Over the past few years, senses other than sight have been explored by brand experts and marketers. Although the senses of taste and touch are more difficult for brands to reach, some brands like Singapore Airlines and Rolls Royce have already used scent to build brand identity, also known as olfactive branding. A new area of focus is now sound branding, which will be explored in this article.

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While this keyboard design concept by Ignacio Pilotto would be hard to use for untrained typists it shows the power of brands when replacing the letters to which the brand logos correspond. The repetition of logos used by the advertising psychology causes us to systematically recognize the brands, getting us to recognize the logos rather than our own alphabet.

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The perils of international branding have once again been highlighted with the news of Russian gas giant Gazprom’s new joint venture with Nigerian firm NNPC — to be called Nigaz. (The logo on the left is a selfmade mockup)

While the origin of the name is easily explained — a conjunction of the words “Nigeria” and “gaz” — English-speakers seeing the word written down find the brand name has rather different connotations.

Incredulous Twitterers quickly spread the story around, dubbing it a branding fail and prompting a number to suggest Nigaz should adopt a strapline along the lines of “gas with attitude”.

Nigaz will actually build refineries, pipelines and gas power stations in Nigeria.

Read More at Brand Republic or check out our story about Bing Means Disease

Some of you might have heard of Microsoft’s new search engine which was being developed in stealth mode under the name of Kumo. Now that it’s nearly ready to “fight” Google’s dominance Microsoft announced the official name bing and will launch a $100 million marketing campaign to introduce the brand.

Too bad, bing means disease in Chinese

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Interesting collection of current and older corporate brand guidelines including the Apple Web Design Guide from December 1996:

Keep Pages Short
Short pages are better than long pages. People are more likely to read a short passage of text than a long one, especially if they have to make an extra effort, like scrolling, to do it. Onscreen text is more difficult and time consuming to read than hardcopy text, which makes people even
less likely to thoroughly read long sections of text on a computer.

First I thought it was a hoax but knowing Eggvertising, Fieldvertising and other methods from the past I’m not surprised: Business Cards made from meat and lasers.

Meatcards brings meat and lasers together to create the most protein-rich business cards ever.

The product is still in the testing stages, but according to its homepage they should be going on sale some time soon. Make sure to check out this awesome Flickr set to see how it’s done.

Last year the German city of Cottbus initiated a nationwide design contest for their new logo and a reward of € 8000 for the winning entry. A couple of days ago a local newspaper revealed the winner and it’s horrible. The selected logo is so bad, people have created viable alternatives and also sarcastic copies of it.

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To lure trendy and fashion-conscious Japanese KOOL cigarettes uses a very cool packaging. The box was developed specifically for distribution through Japan’s Circle K Sunkus convenience store chain and features a snake style design without any warnings like Europe and the USA have to display. “With packaging like this available, it’s no wonder that a lot of fashion-conscious Japanese youth continue to smoke.”, says Japan Marketing News.

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Pepsi reached out to 25 “digital and social media influencers” with three separately-shipped packages. The first contained five cans representing logo design from 1898 to 1950. The second contained five cans from 1962 to 1998. The third contained the newly launched can design – six of them full of actual Pepsi. Also included was a short video which you can watch here.

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One of the biggest rebrandings in history will take place over the next months and years. Pepsi Co will be revamping the design and identities of their key brands while their sales drop between 2% and 5% in various beverage categories. Only the logo, designed by New York-based Arnell Group has been released so far.

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Founded in 1966 as Sound of Music and renamed to Best Buy in 1983, the consumer electronics giant is one of the largest retailers of its kind with its low prices. After years of using the old logo that looked like a $1 bin, Best Buy now has a very modern and clean new logo. With over 1,000 stores worldwide Best Buy will have to spend a great deal of money to rebrand their locations.

I like the new logo. What do you think?

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Quicksprout compiled a list of creative business cards that will distinguish yourself from competitors. Some of the 51 business cards are a bit too much for my taste but here are the ones I find interesting.

The question is which print shop will produce them for a reasonable price.

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