Loco logos

Image isn’t everything – or so they say.

Whoever coined that phrase clearly never talked to anyone involved in brand management or advertising. To brands, image is everything, and they’re obviously willing to go all-out to make sure everyone else knows that.

So obviously, that is why one of the most visible brands in the world, PepsiCo Inc., has re-designed its logo in an attempt to refresh the style and image of its brand. The plan, which will cost hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide and took months to concoct, is basically pointless.

Frank Cooper, Pepsi’s vice president of marketing, said, “As we move out of this traditional mass marketing and mass distribution era into today’s culture, there’s an opportunity to bring humanity back, both in terms of the design but also in the way we engage consumers. By making the logo more dynamic and more alive ... (it is) absolutely a huge step in the right direction.”

Even coming from a guy interested in advertising, this is total bullshit. The last small logo update happened in 2002, but really ever since the major change in 1987, the Pepsi logo has been solid. This is not.

The change is supposed to represent some series of smiles (A smile will characterize the brand Pepsi, while a grin is used for Diet Pepsi and a laugh is used for Pepsi Max, how creative!), but in reality it just looks awful.

Spending hundreds of millions to replace vending machines, billboards, delivery trucks and everything else doesn’t seem worth it when Pepsi moves from a strong, definitive brand and logo to a hackneyed one which features all lower-case letters to try to attract text-happy millennials.

This is another instance when brands seemingly tinker with things that aren’t really messed up. Pepsi, while not as successful or well-loved as Coke, still has its fans and is one of the most viable brands around.

Although brands always have to stay ahead of the curve in an attempt to prevent suddenly falling behind, Pepsi jumps the gun a bit here. There hasn’t been any inkling that the company is struggling, so why take this approach now?

Even worse, this could be a ploy by Pepsi to re-invigorate the interest in its brand without having to alter anything within the product. Now, I know that’s not necessarily an evil thing, but it’s going to be interesting if they market the new logo as part of some “new” Pepsi.

Additionally, it’s even worse that in today’s economic meltdown, a company throws away money to pay company lots of money just to rearrange some pixels and maneuver the angles on the logo just to refresh things a bit. Couldn’t Pepsi have helped themselves more by donating that money to a charity or struggling cause? That would have helped someone besides themselves.

This logo change isn’t the best move for Pepsi, especially based on what they’ve come up with. Moves like this make it easy to see why they’re always lagging behind Coke.