Coke Adds Life! News Posted by Seb Patrick on 14th November 2006, 15:30 Well, we’re surely not that far away, now, are we?
I can honestly say that I do. Ah, KFC and branding, my two loves… And I agree Stephen – I can’t see why they bothered. The current one was perfectly fine. People seem to change logos for the sake of it, when really they should last as long as possible. Change everything else about your branding, fine – but you shouldn’t change your logo unless you absolutely have to. It’s your way of saying “we’ve been round for ages, and we’re still great”. Look at the American TV networks – CNN’s logo has stayed the same since launch, and quite right too.
It’s the difference between instinct and numbers. PR firm does research, finds that people think of the logo as ‘that old thing’ and panic that they’re not ‘contemporary’ any more. Totally missing the point that people RECOGNISED the damn thing in the first place. Also, of course, how can a hired agency justify spending thousands – and then win a contract for millions – by saying “Well, Mr Coke, it seems you shoudl leave things exactly as they are.” Stuff like this sometimes makes me glad to have such a willfully uncompromising boss…
Agreed, Andrew. It’s also why – going from multinational companies to, erm, us, for a second – I wish I hadn’t changed the G&T “logo” when we relaunched. We went from a version of Microgramma Extended, to Eurostile Bold (very similar, just not stretched)… to, erm, Futura Black. In retrospect, we just shouldn’t have changed the typeface at all. It erodes what little graphical identity G&T actually has.
Was it just me, then, that upon seeing the picture in the paper this morning, didn’t realise it had changed until reading it in the article?
I’m with Seb about not being particularly bothered about this, but this is mainly because as far as I’m concerned all multinational companies can shit themselves down the pan as far as I’m concerned. And maybe this is the point – perspectives on multinational companies have really changed in the last 20 years. McDonald’s had to do some serious thinking about how they were to be viewed in the future and they decided to give people the impression that their outlets were green and healthy places. Giving the Colonel an apron is basically ramming home the notion that it’s a small family firm rather than the vast corporation it truly is. Apart from that the logo hasn’t changed that much.
Oddly, this very thing has come up at work in the last two weeks.. Having decided to go for some sweatshirts and polo shirts, I was asked to design a new logo. After much thought, I realised the implications of changing and the costs involved would be enormous and disn’t take into to consideration that as naff as the logo is, it’s now 16 years old and everyone recognises it within our customer base. In the end, the old logo stayed, but for clothing purposes, the company name now circles the logo. KFC, of course are very image concious, hence changing from Kentucky ‘FRIED’ chicken to simply KFC, this proceeded McDonalds healthy eating campaign by a few years. Recently, Burger King have brought out a new mega king size burger that seems to ridicule McDonalds health campaign. As if by magic, the latest news is that McDonalds have now decided to ‘stuff’ the healthy campain and return to the ‘big meal’ image…… Sort that one out Jamie Bloody Oliver…
>Was it just me, then, that upon seeing the picture in the paper this morning, didn?t realise it had changed until reading it in the article? Nope! I didn’t notice either! :oD
Took me a moment to remember the Dwarfy link to this… But surely we’re all missing the point, right? Which is that Kentucky Fried Chicken (as I shall always know them) tastes, at best, like battered ennui, and more usually like deep-fried garbage. (Well, I’ve always liked burgers and fries better, at any rate.)
Wow. I want one. Or rather, part of me wants one, and the other part says, “Well, if you’ve got two hundred grand to drop on one of those things, wouldn’t you want some other stuff first?”
Look, I took the name of the female counterpart of a Red Dwarf character who has a soft spot in his heart for the likes of Napoleon–who wants, in his heart of hearts, to rule a large part of the known Universe, despite his complete pratness. What did you expect? =P And to be fair, first I want stuff like a Nintendo Wii*. And a new, not-shit computer. And a bunch of DVDs and albums and books and that. *Stupid, stupid, stupid name. Was “Revolution” really that scary to folks?
Nice article on the KFC rebrand here. Reading that article, I do feel slightly more well disposed towards it – KFC don’t change logos every five minutes, and it is a nice evolution. I hope it stays for a while, though – notice that the rebrands have been fairly close together since 1991…
I’ll tell you the worst example of pointless rebranding recently – the BBC ONE idents. The Balloons were some of the best TV idents ever made – just *perfect*. Introduced in 1997, they went off-air in 2002 – they lasted five years. And replaced with the fucking awful Rhythm & Movement idents. Now we’ve got the Circle idents – and very nice they are too. (And tellingly, a step towards bringing the globe back – or, at the very least, riffing off it.) But the Balloons would *still* look great today – and be *appropriate* for today. They haven’t aged one bit. I’m not saying they could have been used forever, obviously – but they could have at least lasted up until now. And what replaced them was just fucking awful – and also pointless rebranding because a manager wanted to “make their mark”, rather than respect decades of *good* tradition. Grrr.
I fucking hated those dancing/ rhythm & Movement idents! grr…they just irritated the hell outta me. But the new circle idents have better quality to them though.
I see… all the BBC idents are the same on all my BBS DVDs- the BBC logo with some siwrly thing going on behind it
Yeah, that’s the classic BBC video ident, which – hopefully – will never really change (beyond whenever they update the logo). But what we mean here are the between-programme ones on the BBC channels themselves. (sorry if that sounded patronising, but I assumed from your comment that you’re in the States or summat?)
The BBC logo change remains to be the only time I’ve ever approved of a re-branding. I love the old italic version, but the current one just seems… better.
The interesting thing about the Ribbons ident is that it *isn’t* actually the BBC Video ident – various ones used to exist (this is my favourite), but they don’t any more. What it actually is is the generic BBC ident (as seen on desktop backgrounds across the BBC) – so if, say, the Queen died, or nuclear war came upon us, then that’s the ident they would actually use for broadcasting across all channels. (Not me making things up – it’s been stated by various people who work in BBC pres.)
Even though it is practically the same graphic image in essence as the one previous, Colnel Sanders actually appears ten years younger! I think that Nicky Hambleton Jones got in there first.
Actually whilst I’m here, I had a sudden nostalgia for the Channel Four Schools countdown the other day. No-one’s uploaded it on YouToob yet so if anyone knows where I can find it please say! It’s been driving me mad.
I fucking *had* the video to that, but it’s on the other puter – and it’s broken. I’ve got the full music, if that’s any good?
Seb- ahh, I live in australia and so don’t get BBC TV. I thought you were talking about DVD idents. All maked sense now
“I love the old italic version, but the current one just seems? better.” Strictly speaking, the current version is taking us back further than the italic version could be dated to. It actually evokes the 1950s one, for me. “I had a sudden nostalgia for the Channel Four Schools countdown the other day.” It’s undergoing refurbishment at the moment, but this place is BRILLIANT: http://www.tv-ark.org.uk/. Loads of Channel Four Schools clips, including that wonderful countdown.
Joey: http://admin.ofla.info/stuffage/ George: Yeah, that’s where I got the video from, I think.TV Ark is great. Why they had to take it down for ages whilst refurbishing it I don’t know. I’ll happily take a site down for a weekend if it’ll make my life easier, but months at a time?
John, that’s fucking BRILLIANT. Me and Joey are having a nostalgia fest. Do TV Ark have any of their content available while this refurb is going on, then?
No – they’ve taken it all down. Gah. Actually, that content didn’t come from TV Ark. But I’ll contact you seperately as to where I got it, and where to get more…
Those are only sound clips, though! I have my laptop with me now, with video clips of the Channel Four Schools countdown downloaded from TV Ark, so give me a second to upload them to youtube and I’ll post the links here…
Just bumping this to the top in case you missed my contributions (youtube records no views of the videos except my own!), and to suggest you check out this person’s collection. Includes many many CBBC clips. http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=prestolovesvarla
Cheers George! I’ll have a look at those when I’m not at work and expect to… you know… work. Eeek, boss is coming! *closes G&T*
Scroll down to the bottom for today’s new BBC ONE ident. I think it’s superb. Finally, BBC ONE are realising you can have FUN with idents again.
A beautiful BBC ONE Christmas ident this year. (Lovely continuity announcement too. *That’s* how you do friendly announcements, not the way BBC THREE generally does them…) BBC TWO’s are lovely too.
Better than the Christmas 1978 ident, which is included in the Doctor Who Key to Time boxset. Track it down – awful, just awful.
It’s lovely to see new comments in an old article and them not turning out to be spam but excellent idents!
