Some businesses think that if they rebrand, consumers would not recognize them anymore. That is not the case. There are actually a number of reasons why rebranding can be very beneficial for a company. It can help with things like staying current, reaching a new audience, reflecting new products, goals or even values. Rebranding is something even the biggest companies in the world do. Here are five recent examples of companies who have went through the logo redesign process this year:
General Motors
GM is the parent company of well known brands in the auto industry like Chevrolet, Buick and Cadillac. They are headquartered in Detroit, Michigan and they are one of the largest car manufacturers in the world. They updated their logo for the first time in more than half a century in a couple ways. They switched to lowercase letters replacing the navy blue with a sky blue. They wanted to more accurately portray that they are moving towards electric cars. They also released a new tagline in conjunction with the new logo reading “The clean skies of a zero-emission future”. The new logo has a much more modern feeling and signals the change that they are trying to make within their own product lines.
Calendly
Calendly was created over eight years ago to relieve the hassle of back-and-forth emails, missed phone calls and skipped meetings and since then their branding has remained largely untouched. They called upon Pentagram to update and revise to better fit with their growing business. The new design was intended to be both modern and geometric while incorporating a new monochromatic blue color pallet for the logo. In addition to their new look and feel, they are also launching a new set of features for their enterprise customers.
Central Intelligence Agency
The CIA is the intelligence agency that analyzes foreign data and takes covert action to keep the U.S. safe. The highly secretive agency decided it was time to make some changes to their traditional logo. The intent of the redesign is to attract a more diverse group of individuals with different backgrounds from different walks of life. They also cleaned up the look of their website to fit with the new logo. Some criticized the logo when it was first revealed in January compared to an album cover or a piece of artwork, not the logo of a federal agency. However, the point of the logo redesign was to show that they are a modern agency and the update translated their new values and culture.
Kia Motors
Kia debuted their new logo with a bang. They used a drone based fireworks to showcase their new angular design. They moved from a traditional logo to one where the K and M are connected together as one while using the existing red color that was found on the previous logo. Their last logo was created back in 2004. The intention of the update was to depict that Kia was an inspiring and confident brand capable of producing cars that also had great design.
Burger King
As a part of their first rebrand in over 20 years, Burger King released a new logo. While you will still find the company name inside two buns, there is a much more simple aesthetic. However, the new logo isn’t actually so new. It closely resembles the Burger King logo from the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s. The intent of going back to the original logo was to pay homage to the heritage as well as keeping things simple. The trend for many brands today is to keep their logo as simple and memorable as possible.
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CEO | Brand Champion
Michael Doyle has been changing the face of Brand Marketing for over two decades. He built a tech-based advertising agency, DNA Advertising, into a multi-million dollar company. Michael sold the company as part of a national IPO in 2000. Michael founded Brand Iron in 2002 and has since lent his expertise to hundreds of other businesses in dozens of industries around the world.
