In running a marketing firm that specializes in establishing an organization’s identity on the internet, branding is on the forefront of my brain everytime I enter the role of project manager. When you own a business, your name and all the mental and physical images that individuals associate with your name are your bread and butter.
In the past, clients have contacted me when they are embarking on a “re-branding” adventure. They are interested in completely morphing their corporate identity. Maybe they feel that they have been lack-luster in their presentation of their company. Maybe they feel that as the company is growing, the strength of their identity through logos and so forth should be on an incline as well. In communication science, a tactic of intuitive public relations crisis management is rebranding.
What happens when rebranding to improve business prosperity leads to a proverbial tidal wave of negative press? What happens when you feel your company took the steps to build the typhoon shelters to avoid such a disaster? Your team took the precautions to cover first, second, and third base, but the mud-slinging made its way home with an unimaginable home run…
Quark, one of the leaders in creative communication design for businesses, has found its way into the mud pit.
By revitalizing the distinctiveness of the company, the higher-ups at Quark felt they could represent the company’s growth and rebirth. With a competitive market of desktop publishing applications moving in on the turf once soundly held by Quark, this move toward a new identity appeared to be a great idea and way to capture a new audience.
The results, however, weren’t as exalted as the design firm behind the company’s new logo, SicolaMartin, would have hoped.
As iterated in Gene Gable’s article, Sometimes a Logo Is Just a Logo. there are a number of ways to head off a debacle like the one Quark’s PR team is faced with currently. And just like in this case, sometimes researching a new identity against withstanding trademarks isn’t going to dig up all the dirt.
Before coming upon the part of Gable’s article in which he gives great insight on how to avoid a branding issue like this, I had a number of ideas floating in my head that would make for good criteria / rules in developing a new identity or rebranding. One thing I kept thinking aloud was… aren’t the days of a simple letter, one letter only, to represent your company over? There are only 26 letters in the alphabet and I guarantee that there are more than a handful of identities out there utilizing that one letter. I understand there are a million and one ways to morph or represent a letter, add specific colors or shapes within the lines, but the saturation of the idea as an identity is quite high.
I recommend reading Gable’s article, Sometimes a Logo Is Just a Logo, whether you work in a design firm or run your own business. He does a great job of explaining that these things do happen, but there are ways to avoid them, and really just what does it mean if you invest in a new identity, only to find out that it is one already established in a different arena.