After hearing the news this week that Absolut would be unveiling a new logo, I thought to myself, “wow, this could either be an amazingly modern move, or a complete disaster”. In the end, I think it’s more of a “oh, ok… moving on” type of move. Absolut changed the type font slightly, removed the words “Vodka” and “Country of Sweden”, and added a period right after the name Absolut to punctuate the brands different spelling. In the end, it doesn’t come off as any more iconic than before, and only helps them in terms of cost of printing on the bottle. We have to really ask ourselves, do we care about this? Do we even notice. This isn’t Grey Goose removing the Geese and scenery from the bottle, or Jim Beam taking off their famous seal… It’s a type font change, and remove of a few words we’ll forget about in a month. If I had to guess, I’d say the thing most customers associate with Absolut is their bottle shape, so as long as that stays the same they should be good.
Knowing how to properly brand yourself is tricky. You want to stay modern, and updated, but you don’t want to offend those that have followed your brand for so long. Coca Cola learned this the hard way with their tampering with the original coke formula back in 1985. It was suppose to be the change hat would ride them into the future… and in the end it almost destroyed them and led to a return to coca cola classic in 1992. Even as recent as last year when Makers Mark announced they would be changing the amount of alcohol in their bourbon there was an outcry… But let’s be honest, recipes and formulas are a lot more sensitive than logos.. or are they. If you had to answer what are the most iconic brands in the world, they all have pretty dominant logos that have changed little to none since existence.
McDonalds, Coca Cola, and Marlboro are pretty much the big 3…. we all know those Golden Arches, that that perfect cursive coca cola, and the red roofs of Marlboro… so maybe a logo is a bigger deal than we think. It’s the first thing you see when looking at a brand and in a lot of cases makes that first impression to you when deciding if you’re gonna become a customer. So does a simple shift in a few things on the logo appeal to you as a consumer? Next time you’re in the liquor store, ask yourself if you even notice the change…
Cheers
