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Top Logo Disasters of the Last 10 Years
by Cono Fusco
A well-designed logo is priceless for a company. It opens the door to creating lasting brand awareness and can be responsible for building a loyal customer base and generating steady sales. On the other hand, a poorly-designed logo can have negative consequences for a company's image and bottom line. If a potential customer is turned off by your company's branding, they are unlikely to purchase your product or service.
Some companies have generated the wrong type of exposure for trotting out ineffective logos during the past decade. A few of these companies probably wish they could have enlisted a professional logo design firm for a do-over with their branding efforts.
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SyFy: Being associated with STD is not good for business. That did not stop the SciFi Channel from rebranding its logo to SyFy. The tag line told views to imagine greater. All they could focus on was the fact that the new logo doubled as a slang word for syphilis. Sci Fi Channel attempted to be hip by changing to a texting friendly logo. Instead it earned scathing criticism. A significant number of long time viewers left, hurting ratings for some of the network's shows.
Tropicana: A 21st century redesign took away the iconic straw in the orange that had become identified with Tropicana and replaced it with a glass of orange juice and the word Tropicana running sideways along the front of the carton. Customers were outraged and the backlash resulted in a 20 percent drop in sales. It forced PepsiCo to announce a month later it would switch back to the old Tropicana logo.
The Gap: After two decades of being identified by an iconic blue box with the word Gap in all capital letters, the trendy department store decided to go with a lowercase version of their name in front of a small offset box in the upper corner. It was a rebranding nightmare. Critics dismissed the new logo as an uninspired corporate rebranding effort. Consumers voiced their displeasure loud enough on social media networks that the Gap resurrected its previous logo a scant two weeks later.
Animal Planet: Another cable channel that suffered a rebranding nightmare. Animal Planet ditched its original logo featuring an elephant under a small planet Earth in the upper corner with a new logo that featured the channel's name and a sideways letter m in the word animal. Protests over the new logo fell on deaf ears with network executives. The sideways M logo remains with Animal Planet.
Capital One: Adding a swoosh does not work well for every company. Capital One found out the hard way when it took a page from Nike's book and added a swoosh to its corporate logo in 2008. The swoosh was put in place to appeal to a younger advertising demographic. The problem is that it used an element that had been a fad more than a decade earlier. The result was criticism that Capital One was out of touch with its target audience.
Radio Shack: If a company spends decades creating brand awareness, changing that name in order to seem more modern and cool is not a smart move. Radio Shack proved that point with its efforts to rebrand itself as The Shack. The move was made to emphasize its diversity of offerings and it released an updated logo without the iconic R in the circle. A reputation of poor customer service, high prices and limited selection had already turned away many customers. Attempts to rebrand into a generic name did not prove helpful or last long.
Pizza Hut: No one at Pizza Hut paid attention to the Radio Shack debacle. Pizza Hut executives tried the same rebranding ploy when they tried to shorten the company name to The Hut. Their objective was to draw attention to newer menu offerings like pasta. Everything from restaurant signs to pizza boxes used the changed name in parts of the United States. It proved unpopular enough that the traditional Pizza Hut name reappeared in a short time. Pizza Hut experienced a similar failure in the United Kingdom when it tried to rebrand to Pasta Hut.
One thing these failed rebranding efforts teach small business owners is that it is important to design a logo that works and stick with it. Professional Logo Designers know how important it is to generate positive brand awareness. That is why they work tirelessly to create a logo that will help your company stand out in a crowded marketplace.
Rebranding a logo can be risky business if not done the right way. A logo should only be redesigned if it is going to bring in additional customers and boost sales. Professional Logo Designers offer valuable assistance in this area by giving companies a good idea of which logo designs will work best for their business.
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